Apple now allows retro game emulators on its App Store—but with big caveats

Enlarge / The classic Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog running on an iPhone—in this case, as a standalone app. (credit: Samuel Axon)

When Apple posted its latest update to the App Store’s app review and submission policies for developers, it included language that appears to explicitly allow a new kind of app for emulating retro console games.

Apple has long forbidden apps that run code from an external source, but today’s announced changes now allow “software that is not embedded in the binary” in certain cases, with “retro game console emulator apps can offer to download games” specifically listed as one of those cases.

Here’s the exact wording: