Apple updated their App Store guidelines this week to allow game emulators for “retro games”. Great news! Right?

Samuel Axon of ArsTechnica isn’t so sure:

It's a little fuzzy how this will play out, but it may not allow the kind of emulators you see on Android and desktop, which let you play retro games from any outside source.

You should read Axon’s post to see what they think this does allow, but basically they think it isn’t what anyone wants. I have a different reading, though. My reading is that app developers are responsible for the games downloadable from inside their app, but they’re not responsible for what users load into the app. Google makes a web browser and they’re not on the hook for their users going to websites Apple wouldn’t allow, and I think this is a similar situation.

But I’m not a lawyer, so we’ll see what this actually means in practice.

For what it’s worth, I asked Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT if they thought this clause allows for emulators that let users bring their own ROMs and all 3 thought it would be allowed. I’m not saying that confirms it, but that’s how the robots and I interpret it.