Apple approves - then pulls - Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone

by Julian Prokaza
on Tue 08 Sep 2009 Comment

Apple finally approved a licensed Commodore 64 emulator application for the iPhone yesterday, after initially rejecting it for allowing arbitrary code to be executed. This is expressly forbidden by the iPhone developers’ agreement and the emulator fell foul for being too faithful to that home computer of yore — it included the original Commodore BASIC 2.0 interpreter for writing and running programs.

The developer subsequently removed the BASIC interpreter and re-submitted the app and it was made available on the iPhone App Store yesterday. As a result, everyone was able to play five pixel-perfect Commodore 64 games on their iPhone — with the promise of more on the horizon. Yay, right? Wrong…

Shortly after the emulator appeared, it was revealed that the BASIC interpreter hadn’t actually been removed — it had just been hidden. Press a couple of buttons on the virtual C64 keyboard and it was made available again — much to the annoyance of Apple. The app was pulled from the App Store

The Commodore 64 emulator app has now been removed and the developer has resubmitted a new version with the BASIC interpreter *really* removed. It must have been a mistake, or something. Look for the updated app to appear in a few days — or months — depending on how charitable Apple is feeling…

[ Commodore 64 emulator (iTunes)]

Arctic Shipwreck , Dragon's Den , Jack Attack , Jupiter Lander and Lemans , in case you were wondering…

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie

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