Last April, many of us were happy to receive the news that Apple introduced some changes to the legal conditions for publishing apps on the App Store, and that thanks to these changes retro video game emulators now have a place on iOS. And to confirm this, a long-awaited and celebrated milestone occurred last May, with the arrival of RetroArch on Apple devices.

However, we recently learned that the company vetoed UTM, a very popular general purpose emulator and this allows the installation of multiple operating systems from the Apple ecosystem (it has been present in macOS for some time) and that on Cupertino computers it is able to emulate current operating systems as well as their classic versions, making it a very useful tool.

Since it is a universal emulator, It should be noted that it does not meet the strict conditions defined by Apple with an amendment to the iOS App Store rules in April. Of course, it’s open to debate as to why Apple doesn’t want other operating systems emulated on its devices, especially if it does so in an isolated environment that doesn’t have access to the rest of the device. But since we are talking about those from Cupertino, that conversation would probably be useless.

Now it seems that they have proposed to be inflexible in this sense, and as we read in Ars Technica, Apple also banned iDOS, the iOS version of DOSBox. And according to the developer’s story, they weren’t even able to explain to him what he would have to do to bring his development up to iOS publishing standards:

«They decided that iDOS is not a retro game console, so the new rule does not apply. They suggested I make the changes and resend it for review, but when I asked what changes I should make to comply, they had no idea, even when I asked them what a retro game console was. It’s still the same old nonsensical “we know it when we see it” answer.»

As I said before, I understand that Apple refuses to allow emulation of current operating systems in iOS, but they really do the same with DOSBox, a tool that is globally recognized and used to restore computer games from the MS-DOS era? According to Cupertino, what user security problem does this type of tool pose? Maybe someone very brave will decide to try installing what I know is WordPerfect 5.1? It’s becoming increasingly clear that, despite what they say, Apple doesn’t have a DMA problem, no, it has a problem with the obsessive level of control you want to have over what your users can do with your devices.