The makers of Dolphin, a Gamecube and Wii emulator for iOS, have communicatedthat your program will not appear in the App Store. The background is the fact that the Delta emulator appeared somewhat surprisingly in Apple’s App Store outside the EU. Within the EU, Delta can be downloaded from the alternative app marketplace Altstore.
The reason given by the makers of Dolphin announced that Apple prohibits applications in the App Store from using JIT recompilers. The only exceptions are Safari and other browsers within the EU. In the EU, Apple also had to allow JIT for other browsers due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA is also the reason why the legacy store for iOS exists in Europe, including the Delta emulator.
The JIT recompiler is necessary because the Gamecube and Wii are based on Power PC chips. The code needs to be translated for ARM-based chips, which is done by the JIT recompiler. The makers of Dolphin suspect that Apple doesn’t allow JIT for security reasons. However, this justification appears to be Apple’s basic argument against any DMA regulation, as the company’s early 2024 statement on DMA adjustments shows.
Dolphin also works without a JIT recompiler, as the makers of the emulator explain. Then the performance is significantly worse and games are basically unplayable. The Dolphin team shows this with two videos: One shows the starting sequence of a race in Mario Kart with JIT, one without. Both times the game was played on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple’s most powerful iPhone.
The difference is very clear – the version without JIT recompiler stutters and runs much slower. The Dolphin team suspects that Apple would reject the emulator without a recompiler anyway because the games would be unplayable.