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Fully Functional MAME Emulator Appears in App Store

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Apr 12, 2001
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TouchArcade notes the appearance of an arcade game called Gridlee in the App Store.

Gridlee is a 1983 arcade game that was never officially released, but the code was later released for free for non-commercial usage in 2001. The App Store app uses MAME 0.139u1 (MAME4iOS) to provide the emulation engine for the game. MAME is a popular arcade machine emulator that will run thousands of arcade games if you have the original ROMs.

When launching the free app, users are greeted with the Gridlee game. TouchArcade readers, however, quickly noticed that additional ROMs could be copied into the App's ROM directory (without jailbreaking), revealing the fully functional MAME emulator.
When word of this hit our forums, readers were quick to pull out iExplore and begin digging about the app's directory structure looking for a ROM folder. Well, it's in there, and sure enough, if one copies other MAME ROMs into that folder, the Gridlee app starts up with the standard MAME4iOS ROM listing, allowing for a great many games beyond just Gridlee to be played on the iPhone or iPad in this Universal app.
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IMG_0140-525x393.png
The story is similar to the iMAME Emulator that was released into the App Store in December, 2011. Apple quickly pulled that app a few days after its release. While a number of individual emulators do exist on the App Store, Apple has been more restrictive about these open emulators, presumably due to potential legal issues.

Gridlee is a free download on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Fully Functional MAME Emulator Appears in App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2013/01/26/fully-functional-mame-emulator-appears-in-app-store/
bjsterilite said:
That would mean looking for a free open version of a gameboy adv game no?
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Or a publisher to port the game, but rather than re-writing it for iOS, they could wrap it in a GBA emulator in much the same way.

I imagine, IF something like this is an issue for Apple, they will look more carefully in the future.
 
Awesome, I already have iMAME before it was pulled, but it's nice to have two options.

Now if they could only sneak in SNES, NES, GBA, Genesis, TG-16, & Neo Geo emulators, we'd be all set. I'm running jailbroken, so I already have the above, but it doesn't look like jailbreaking is going to be around forever (although developer account IPA signing is another alternative..).
 
alphaprime said:
it doesn't look like jailbreaking is going to be around forever (although developer account IPA signing is another alternative..).
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See, I don't buy that.

It's getting slower, but it's not dead. There will be new crops of jailbreakers as well. It's no different than when we used to hack game consoles to run linux or backup our games to a hard drive to get really fast load speeds. I had an original XBOX with a 120GB Hard Drive with all of my games on it, and some homebrew games! A new firmware update would come out and take forever to softmod, or sometimes there would only be hardmods available, it goes back and forth.

Jailbreaking is getting slower, but it's far from dead.
 
WeegieMac said:
Is this the same MAME engine as the pulled iMame app or a more advanced one capable of some newer games (like SEGA Rally)?
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Think all the mobile versions are based off the same version of Mame. Believe the problem is down to processor power more than anything else, though I recall there being some behind-the-scenes changes in the Mame code in later versions which doesn't help either.
 
babyj said:
Think all the mobile versions are based off the same version of Mame. Believe the problem is down to processor power more than anything else, though I recall there being some behind-the-scenes changes in the Mame code in later versions which doesn't help either.
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Ah, ok ... cheers for that.

I really wish I hadn't sold my huge Saturn collection years ago.

Damn I miss SEGA Rally ...
 
I've already got iMAME, so no need for this.

As far as a GBA emulator... I have one on my iMac. I don't have the source code for it, but I wouldn't imagine it's very difficult for whoever does have it to port it over to iOS.
 
WeegieMac said:
Is this the same MAME engine as the pulled iMame app or a more advanced one capable of some newer games (like SEGA Rally)?
Click to expand...

This is a newer version.

----------
ArtOfWarfare said:
I've already got iMAME, so no need for this.

As far as a GBA emulator... I have one on my iMac. I don't have the source code for it, but I wouldn't imagine it's very difficult for whoever does have it to port it over to iOS.
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http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=2647375&postcount=53
 
Zoiks said:
How? Please give more detail.

More ROMs compatible with iMame? iMame more stable?

Thanks. :)
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I'd like more analysis as well.

Either way here's the obligatory "in before it's pulled!"

:D

BL.
 
arn said:
This is a newer version.
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Didn't realise they'd jumped ahead so far on the Mame version, though it is still a few years old. Will be interesting to see what it's like playing some of the more recent games.
 
Last edited:
I've never used iexplore before. Could be fun seeing what games I can play :)


The fact this has to be snuck into the store is ridiculous.
 
Apple doesn't want you to have fun, so they'll pull this one very soon. Back to Angry Birds... What a waste.
 
Got this for my new iPhone 5. I'll have to get used to the onscreen joystick; it's not as instantly responsive as playing MAME OS X using an actual keyboard. Still, it's nice for casual retro gaming on the go.
 
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