Apple recently changed its policy to allow game emulators on the App Store. Delta, one of the essential emulation apps, skyrocketed to the top of the App Store overnight. Another popular emulator called Dolphin, however, is still facing a policy road block.
Dolphin explains in a blog post that Apple’s resistance to apps using JIT means the App Store is still out of reach for now.
The GameCube and Wii have a PowerPC-based CPU inside them. All modern Apple devices use an ARM-based CPU. It isn’t possible to directly run PowerPC code on an ARM CPU, and vice versa. Therefore, if we want to run a GameCube or Wii game on an iPhone, it is necessary to translate the game’s PowerPC code to ARM so that the CPU can understand it.
Apple has already denied their request to use JIT, likely as a security precaution. Dolphin illustrates just how essential JIT is to their performance:
Hit play on both videos at the same time to see how essential JIT is for running Dolphin on iOS, and read the full blog post here.
More
- Provenance coming to the App Store with PlayStation emulation
- Riley Testut launches Delta game emulator on App Store for everyone, AltStore marketplace for EU
- App Store guidelines now allow game emulators; more
- Here’s why Apple removed the first Game Boy emulator from the App Store
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