Apple allows PC OS emulator on iPhone, iPad: What are these, how these work

Reportedly, Apple initially rejected App Store submissions of UTM-SE and other PC OS emulators citing that the company only allows retro-gaming console emulators on iPhones

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After allowing retro gaming console emulators on iPhones, Apple has now approved UTM SE PC emulator app for distribution on iPhones through the App Store. The operating system emulator app, the first of its kind on iPhones and iPads, allows users to emulate older versions of Windows and MacOS on iPhones to run classic software and retro PC games.

Earlier this year, Apple had updated its App Store guidelines to allow retro game console emulators, mini games, and HTML5 mini apps on iPhones (under guideline 4.7). However, the US-based technology giant reportedly rejected App Store submissions of UTM-SE and iDOS 3, an app that emulates disk operating systems (DOS) like MS-DOS. After this, UTM, the developer of UTM SE app posted on X stating that the Apple’s App Store Review board “determined  that ‘PC is not a console’ and the company  will only allow retro game console emulators on iPhones. The developer also stated that Apple was blocking it on third party app marketplaces too.

However, in a recent post on X, UTM confirmed the availability of UTM SE emulator on iOS and visionOS App Store. Additionally, the app will also be available through the third-party app marketplace – AltStore PAL – in the European Union.

According to the developer, it had to build the iOS app without using the Just-In-Time compiler (JIT) that violates Apple’s guidelines for apps. JIT is a program that is essentially responsible for performance optimisation of Java-based applications. With the iOS app not using JIT, it is likely that the emulator would be less powerful on iPhones compared to other platforms.

UTM SE: Features

According to the app listing page on the App Store, the PC emulator allows users to run “classic softwares” and “old-school games” on iPhones, iPads and Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset. The emulator supports both Video Graphics Array (VGA) mode for graphics and terminal mode for text-only operating systems. The developer said that the app can emulate x86, PPC, and RISC-V architectures.