How a Game Boy emulator app snuck past Apple restrictions

Due to the legal and ethical concerns regarding retro game emulators, they never make their way to Apple's official App Store, but as ReadWrite reports, iPhone and iPad users can - at least for the moment - download a fully functional Game Boy Advance emulator app without the need for a jailbreak. And perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that Apple's own Developer Enterprise Program has laid the groundwork for such an app to be distributed not via the App Store, but simply by clicking a link in a mobile web browser.

The app is called GBA4iOS and its creator, Riley Testut, is using a company called MacBuildServer to distribute it. MacBuildServer is a service that developers use to aid in app development and distribution, and the company also happens to be a part of Apple's iOS Developer Enterprise Program. Using MacBuildServer's enterprise certificate - which the company provides to clients simply as a way to test how the service works - Testut put the app up for download without any requirements on the user end at all.

It should also be noted that no actual game code is being distributed along with the app, so those who take the time to download it will still need to find a way to provide their own game roms. Of course, Testut's current setup seems as though it could implode from a number of different angles, but nobody - including Apple, MacBuildServer, or even Nintendo - has made a move to squash it.