Apple today said it removed Game Boy emulator iGBA from the App Store for violating the company's App Review Guidelines related to spam (section 4.3) and copyright (section 5.2), but it did not provide any specific details.
iGBA was a copycat version of developer Riley Testut's open-source GBA4iOS app. The emulator rose to the top of the App Store charts following its release this weekend, but some people complained that the app was a blatant ripoff overlaid with ads.
"So apparently Apple approved a knock-off of GBA4iOS," said Testut, in a Threads post on Saturday. "I did not give anyone permission to do this, yet it's now sitting at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking)." He quipped that he was "so glad App Review exists to protect consumers from scams and rip-offs like this."
An excerpt from section 5.2 of the App Review Guidelines, related to intellectual property:
Make sure your app only includes content that you created or that you have a license to use. Your app may be removed if you've stepped over the line and used content without permission. Of course, this also means someone else's app may be removed if they've "borrowed" from your work.
It is unclear if Apple removed iGBA because it felt the app ripped off GBA4iOS, or for other reasons. We have asked Apple for clarification about the app's removal, and we will update this article if we receive any additional information.
Notably, iGBA allows iPhone users to load any Game Boy game ROMs downloaded from the web, but the app's removal makes it unclear if Apple will allow ROM-loading apps on the App Store. On its customer support website in the U.S., Nintendo says downloading pirated copies of its games is illegal. It is unclear if Nintendo contacted Apple.
iGBA appeared in the App Store just over a week after Apple allowed "retro game console emulators" on the App Store, but the guidelines are somewhat vague, so hopefully Apple will clarify exactly what is and is not permitted. iGBA can continue to be used by anyone who installed it on their iPhone before it was removed from the App Store.
Testut has not said whether he will make his newer Nintendo game emulator Delta available on the App Store, should it be permitted, but he does plan to distribute it through his alternative app marketplace AltStore on iPhones in the EU.
Update: Apple says that while iGBA's functionality was approved, it removed the app from the App Store after learning that it was a knockoff app that copied another developer's submission, which presumably refers to GBA4iOS.
