iOS is starting a golden 2024. The release of Delta, the first iPhone emulator installed from a third-party store, marked a before and after for the platform. Delta is an emulator for the GameBoy and Nintendo DS, consoles that don’t need much hardware to run their small games. We also saw NES emulators on the App Store (temporarily), but they disappeared out of fear, according to their developers.

What about Dolphin? Talking about this emulator brings up bigger words: emulating the GameCube and Wii on mobile phones. Its developers poured cold water on it: it will not be possible to bring Dolphin to iOS, and Apple is to blame for this.

Dolphin broke the news and denied the rumors: This emulator is not expected to arrive on iPhone. This is followed by “Why isn’t Dolphin coming to the App Store?”, which details what’s going on. They explain it in an article titled: The first person responsible is Apple, but everything is based on JIT (Just In Time).

What is JIT? The Dolphin emulator, under this name, uses a compiler that is then responsible for translating the PowerPC code into ARM to execute operations. This is a little easier to understand if we assume that the GameCube and Wii had a CPU based on the PowerPC, the 1991 architecture jointly developed by Apple, IBM, and Motorola.

Current Apple devices use an ARM-based CPU, so it is not possible to run PowerPC code on an ARM CPU. To achieve this, you need to translate PowerPC code into ARM so that the CPU can understand it: and this is exactly the role of JIT.

So what’s the problem? Currently, Apple does not allow apps to use JIT compilers on iOS. There are only two exceptions. Safari and alternative European web browsers. Dolphin claims to have requested interoperability based on the new DMA to get JIT support, but Apple denied the request.

The app cannot run on iPhone without Apple’s permission, even if it is hosted on a third-party store. This is the biggest difference between iOS and Android: Apps downloaded from alternative stores must be checked by Apple. They cannot be installed without passing this filter.

Possible solution? From Dolphin they technically guarantee that the emulator can run without JIT. The emulator itself has an interpreter to run PowerPC code on ARM. The problem is that games run much slower when the compiler is not involved. To the point where we noticed that the game was running with a significant delay.

“We would love to release DolphiniOS on the App Store or work with the Dolphin Emulator project to get an official release on the App Store.

Unfortunately, this isn’t possible unless Apple relaxes JIT restrictions.”

Dolphin admits this: Without JIT, games are “basically unplayable”. Even on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, smooth execution is not possible without JIT. Thus, they clearly state that Dolphin will never make it to iOS unless Apple gives them permission to use JIT.

Image | Xataka

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