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Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations
(www.macrumors.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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To be clear: apple removed an emulator that was a blatant rip off of an open source emulator but full of ads and tracking. The original emulator is still up.
GBA4iOS was never on the App Store, was it?
No, and it will never be because Riley Testut seem to be as greedy as Apple.
Look he was right, but he’s kind of bitching, he can just release GBA4iOS on the App Store and people will use it instead of that crap filled with ads. What if he just had summited GBA4iOS to the App Store before this developer? Oh I know why, because he’s trying to get his AltStore approved and wanted to have GBA4iOS exclusively there to drive people into it.
Greedy is a strange word to use when both AltStore and Delta (the GBA4iOS successor) are free.
Yes, and why isn't he publishing Delta to the App Store then? He's clearly leveraging Delta to popularize his AltStore. I'm using "greedy" in a sense that he wants to gain something (that may or may not be monetary) by leaving Delta to be an AltStore exclusive.
He quite literally is https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/112230643639698085
Though he has some delays https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/112274428030779833
The linked toot states for publish on the altstore, which is not the App Store. Is there a different statement elsewhere stating otherwise?
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1048524688
I’ve seen that. Thanks! Now if only they’d enable it for Europe instead of forcing people to use their AltStore, which ends up costing them more, AND costing everyone else more.
I think the app store costs money.
So does altstore. With the core technology fees and application requirements, it is much much higher than the 99/yr developer fee.
Also that’s besides the point. I’m trying to learn if the developer said they’d publish on the App Store, not the AltStore.
From what I see his fediverse accounts it doesn't seem like it... there are multiple people asking him to publish on the App Store and he seems to be conveniently ignoring all of them.
I mean it's not beside the point if the reason for not publishing on the App Store was money.
I had no idea about Altstore going in, but looking into it it's all done over Patreon, and I can't find reference to any fees you mention. The most expensive Patreon tier for them is $8.50 per month, or $102 per year, however $3 (at an early bird rate) or $36 per year is enough to allow you to use 3rd party hosts for your app.
https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee
Also worth noting, distribution on third party App Store does not exempt developers from the developer program fee — Developers must sign a separate agreement to opt into the new business terms.
So, not only they are still responsible for the $99/yr fee, they’d need to sign a new agreement to opt into the new business terms, which has a separate additional fee schedule attached.
Read his post again: "Delta has been **APPROVED for distribution with @altstore **". There's no App Store here.
I believe you may have missed that apps distributed using alternative stores still need to be summited and approved by Apple.
I mean, it's GPL code.
Anyone could just upload it, possibly with branding changes if "GBA4iOS" a trademark, as long as they publish the source code with their changes
That's besides the point here. Riley Testut is bitching when he should've been the first to submit and have his own app approved.
Thanks for TL;DR