It appears that Apple has reversed its decision not to allow UTM, a PC emulator, to be available on the App Store for iPhones and iPads. Notably, Apple rejected a submission from UTM developers to be available on the App Store last month.
Thanks to its decision reversal, iPhone and iPad users can now download UTM from the App Store. This PC emulator lets you emulate old versions of Windows OS, macOS, etc., on your iPhones and iPads.
Apple relaxed its App Store policies to allow third-party emulators to be published on the App Store. Taking advantage of this relaxation, the iGBA Game Boy emulator was launched on the App Store. However, it was quickly taken off the App Store following a violation of some Apple rules.
Then, Provenance, a popular emulator that allows emulation of consoles such as NES, SNES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, and even Atari, Sega, and PlayStation, graced the Play Store. Delta Emaultor also launched for Apple iPhone and iPad, followed by the Gamma emulator, which brought PlayStation 1 games to iOS devices along with Bluetooth and wired controller support.
Popular PlayStation portable emulator PPSSPP (short for Playstation Portable Simulator Suitable for Playing Portably) later also arrived for iOS. Then, the Folium emulator was launched on the Apple App Store, becoming the first emulator to bring Nintendo 3DS games for iPhones and iPads.
However, the submission of the PC emulator UTM was rejected, because Apple decided that "PC is not a console." Moreover, UTM also claimed that Apple was blocking its app's listing on third-party App Stores in the EU.
UTM said that Apple refused its submission because Apple believed that it violated rule 4.7, which covers "mini apps, mini-games, streaming games, chatbots, plug-ins and game emulators." Interestingly, the App Review Guidelines didn't annotate Rule 4.7 as a part of the Notarization Review Guidelines.
Cut to now, on a social media post on X, UTM announced:
We are happy to announce that UTM SE is available (for free) on iOS and visionOS App Store (and coming soon to AltStore PAL)!
Shoutouts to AltStore team for their help and to Apple for reconsidering their policy.
Apple iPhone and iPad users can now download the UTM PC emulator from the App Store for free. There was no explanation from Apple about what made them reverse the decision.
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