PPSSPP Emulator Stuck in App Review
PPSSPP is an open source PSP emulator, that lets you run your own PlayStation Portable games on your various devices. PPSSPP is officially available on Android through Google Play, PC, Mac, and recently iOS through the App Store. There is also a Linux flatpak build. The project is ongoing for more than 11 years now, and has been downloaded over 100M times. It has millions of active users on Android.
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For some time now, I have simply not been able to update the paid iOS version on Apple’s App Store. The free version flies through review in a few hours, while the near-identical paid version is just stuck.
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Below is an authentic conversation with App Store Review.
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I tried appealing the previous conversation to the App Store review board, with no result.
It’s just so frustrating. I want to get a bugfix update out, and I can’t.
App Review is continually complaining about things that either aren’t true or that were allowed for other apps, including from the same developer.
Via Craig Grannell, who terms the situation “kafkaesque” (Mastodon):
Apple never wanted emulators on the App Store. I imagine it felt strong-armed into allowing them, due to EU regulators getting antsy, or as a means to attempt to derail third-party app AltStore, which an awful lot of people primarily cared about due to Nintendo emulator Delta. Even with that, Apple first authorised a terrible rip-off over Delta, and everything since has been at best a crapshoot.
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These aren’t the only issues emulator authors have faced. Last I checked, MAME4iOS was in limbo. Several other emulator authors have given up. Meanwhile, Apple merrily approves emulators that barely work and are exploitative crap. A cynic might wonder whether this is intent, to showcase the worst of emulation and put people off.
Increasingly feels like they were only allowed to blunt AltStore and Delta. Now that’s over with, several emulator authors are having trouble with approvals or updates.
Imagine you’re the most valuable company on Earth. Billions of dollars of cash on hand. Best engineers in the world. You could legitimately leave an impact on anything you work on. And one of the primary things you choose to focus on is stubbornly policing fucking game emulators. Like forget about whether it’s good or bad, it is just so unbelievably small minded. An Apple running on all 8 cylinders wouldn’t have time to give a shit about stuff like this.
Take a moment to wrap your head around the fact that Apple fought a multi-year court battle to try to prevent you from putting links in your app. I get that that may have significant revenue effects — but the point is that a company with Apple’s resources should have way more interesting and impactful ways of generating revenue. There is something deeply broken from a creativity perspective if “don’t let app devs talk to users” represents the state of the art in business strategy at Apple.
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No one is even asking Apple to do anything. No one is asking Apple to make sure old apps run. There’s no maintenance burden being requested. Just don’t literally devote time to 1) stopping these projects and then 2) in an act of truly bizarre pettiness, approving a weird competing copycat emulator? Like honestly, would love to hear the reasoning on this move. Only shady ripoff emulators are allowed? This is all so clearly in bad faith that I can’t understand any defense of it.
Previously:
- Mini vMac for iOS Rejected via Notarization
- UTM SE Now in the App Store
- Delta 1.6 Rejected From the App Store
- iDOS 3 Rejected From the App Store
- UTM Blocked Outside App Store via Notarization
- iOS Retro Console Game Emulators
- Delta’s 10-Year Journey to the Top of the App Store
- Allowing iOS Game Emulators and Mini Apps
- Emulation on iPhone
- Allowing Bug Fixes and Challenging the Guidelines
2 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
This happened to an app I work on not long ago (not an emulator). We went through several back-and-forths with the reviewer, who continued to assert that everything was wrong even though we addressed the few legitimate complaints in new builds. Never once did the reviewer concede that _anything_ was fixed. Eventually, I called Apple dev support and requested a call from App Review. A wonderful gentleman gave me a call a few days later, went through point by point, repeatedly saying "yeah, this doesn't make sense" or "yeah, I just don't agree with this" and passed the app on the spot.
While I'm happy for the resolution, it was a stark reminder that we're subject to the whims of one reviewer who has no idea what he/she is doing.
The PPSSPP developer is a good guy, he is very good at what he does, and the community is pretty dang solid, but he's still opinionated when it comes to technical implementation and such. However, he didn't expect this behavior given the last 16 years of App Store shenanigans? It's pretty standard operating procedure by Apple.
Ps I happily paid for Gold on Android even though I mostly use the port on my PC as a RetroArch core. I'd happily pay for it again, but not in anyway where Apple gets a cut. So probably just easier to donate directly to the project than to futz around with the paid version on iOS.