I’d say it’s curious it happened at all. As others have mentioned Apple doesn’t allow emulators at all in their store, perhaps they are afraid of losing too much of the market after EU forces them to allow side-loading?
EDIT: I just checked the App Store listing for this app - I find it pretty hilarious (and for more than one reason) that it’s listed in the Adventure category which has a pirate flag for an icon.
I understand that new app launches need approval by someone who actually knows the rules, whereas new updates for already-published apps are run-by the rank-and-file reviewers.
I stand corrected, although from a policy-making perspective ScummVM allows users to run software acquired through ways not sanctioned by Apple (or owners of the original IPs), which I believe is the major part of why emulators are not allowed on App Store and thus bears a similarity to them in that particular aspect.
Apple controls the JS sandbox in Safari, whereas they don’t control the ScummVM scripting sandbox. In theory it’d allow the execution of arbitrary scripts that can do anything native code can do, although I don’t know - maybe ScummVM checksums the games you load into it and will only run code it recognizes (and if so, maybe that’s why it’s allowed).
Isn't Apple very restrictive about apps that allow running arbitrary code like emulators? I'm also a bit perplexed, unless they have changed their policy recently.
That one runs WASM binaries interfacing (via WASI) with the native iOS AArch64 environment and some clever built-in bindings that make iOS look not entirely unlike a normal POSIX.
Very impressive (and faster than emulation, since WASM can be JIT compiled by iOS!), but not Linux :)
I wonder if it was determined that the code isn’t arbitrary, and nothing is being emulated. It’s more like a content engine.
Perhaps ScummVM is closer in concept to something like Super Mario Maker than to a full blown programming environment. You could argue that the custom content is “code” but it’s more like a limited set of actions accompanied with content.
Yes, but those game engines are - on iOS especially - locked in to running bundled scripts that drive the specific game you’ve purchased from the App Store. ScummVM is running externally provided scripts.
EDIT: I just checked the App Store listing for this app - I find it pretty hilarious (and for more than one reason) that it’s listed in the Adventure category which has a pirate flag for an icon.