Apple will start allowing emulators on the iOS App Store
(9to5mac.com)
from simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world on 06 Apr 2024 01:17
https://lemm.ee/post/28738515
from simple@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world on 06 Apr 2024 01:17
https://lemm.ee/post/28738515
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Do we know if these emulators will support JIT? JIT has always been prohibited on iOS (which is why there are no browsers other than Safari - Firefox and Chrome on iOS are just a Safari WebView plus a crappy interface on top).
Even when sideloading emulators, you only get JIT by paying for a special developer license or using exploits on very specific iOS versions.
Without JIT, sure, go nuts emulating the NES… But forget about anything more demanding than a GameCube, or using this to run a VM or something.
Actually Altstore has AltJIT which works on all iOS versions altstore supports but requires you to be connected to the same network as a computer running altstore.
UTM (which is based on QEMU) is already available on iOS.
Sadly jail breaking is required after iOS 11
For what?
For for UTM
No I believe it also works with altstore (though I haven’t personally tried it).
Hmm. I’ll give that a shot.
So you mean iOS doesn’t natively support JIT for App Store apps and requires hacky workarounds?
I was just pointing out that OPs list was incomplete. Also theoretically someone could include altjit in their app because the App Store guidelines don’t explicitly say you can’t (ofc this would most likely not work).
iOS natively supports JIT (by which we mean writable and executable memory) but Apple locks it down to only two use cases:
AltStore launches a debugger and connects it to your phone. Even though it’s not actually doing anything with a debugger, that’s enough to convince iOS to let your app use memory that’s both writable and executable (the key feature needed for JIT).
Without JIT you need to either resort to a slower form of emulation or do something creative.
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If that’s how you want to put it, sure.
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Wasn’t that explicitly forbidden? Browsers don’t need jit to be fast enough
Edit: was jit explicitly forbidden? Or is it that running dynamically loaded code was forbidden in general and jit falls under that category? If they’re letting emulators and other browser engines in that ban seems to be at least partially lifted
Yes, op is a little confused.
The GameCube also needs a JIT for decent performance. On a phone, that will especially hurt to emulate the CPU in software.
welcome to 2010s
5 B.E. (Before Enshittification)
A good move, and great for distribution, but this does look like it’s difficult to publish an emulator unless you could control the games too. I don’t see this clearly permitting a general purpose emulator. It’s possible, but knowing Apple, I would expect that this could let Nintendo publish an emulator but not necessarily an open source project.
I’m glad to see it, but this to me feels more like testing the water then jumping into the deep end.
I really don’t see Nintendo publishing an emulator that runs on hardware they didn’t make (yay unnecessary e-waste).
Man that rule is such bullcrap. Imagine a photo editor that only allowed you to edit your own pictures and only those matching the app’s content rating.
Didn’t know hell froze over.
This is app store competition does. Apple didn’t want an emulator-friendly app store to become super popular.
Android Market: hey we did that too!..in 2010.
Except they’ve been pulled recently after the Nintendo fiasco
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Did they? I think I remember some authors no longer taking payment for them. Maybe some others took theirs down of their own accord. I don’t remember hearing about Google themselves taking anything down
No, I didn’t mean to say Google did that. Not like Google is a great company, but I’m saying there was a scare a bit ago from the emulator publishers themselves when that happened. At least I thought that’s why aesthersx got taken down, and I thought I remembered others as well. Obviously people seem to disagree
Looks like my next phone will be an SE. Literally the one and only reason I swapped to Android was to have easy access to GBA games.
Is there any good game boy emulator ? I want to play Pokémon.
Drastic is a fantastic DS emulator for android, it recently became free. I bought it over a decade ago and has been a blast.