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Just installed this before, I was shocked and delighted how easy it was.

Just imagine a world where one can install all apps just through their browser. This might be a scary prospect because of scammers / piracy etc, but it suddenly made my iPhone feel like a much more useful device.

Is this what it feels like to run Andoid? I liked it.

Few years ago we could jailbreak the phone via a website :D
 
A word of warning to anyone installing this: I had been playing mario for about 2 minutes when suddenly my entire phone blue-screened and then restarted. Doesn't seem like a safe app.
Except this happens with iOS 7 to iPhone 5S phones and even others without this being installed--essentially a known issue in general unfortunately, unrelated to this.

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I don't understand how it's possible to download an app NOT through the App Store. I have never seen such a thing before.
Seems like it's being done through a license/profile that allows for this type of thing. Fairly normal thing, just not something that a lot of typical users ever deal with.
 
I know there is a risk with any app that is installed, even from the app store but doesn't this seem a bit risky to be installing this on your device? Has anyone seen the code for this?
 
Those cases said the same thing that I did. As long as the emulators have substantial non-infringing uses, they are legal. They involved creating emulators to play licensed copies of games.
I still don't see what sets this particular emulator apart from all other console emulators which have been judged legal. Why the other emulators have been judged to "have substantial non-infringing uses" and this one should not? Licensed copies of games can definaltey be played on this emulator like on all the others.

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Owning Roms are legal if you own a copy of that game already for the platform you are getting the ROM for. For example, if I own GBA games since I have a GBA SP and some games kicking around somewhere, I can download those games legally. Golden Sun 2 was pretty addicting.
That's actually not true at least in the USA, downloading a ROM even if you have an original cartridge is still copyright infringement. In other countries your mileage may vary: here copyright infringement is actually fine as long as it's for personal use.
 
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I'm sure MacRumors accelerated the cancellation of their enterprise license by putting up an official post about this!

I want to play emulators too, but software that store and initialise other software are not permitted by Apple. Using the enterprise license to spread software outside an enterprise is also not permitted.

I'm happy that this works for you guys, but jail breaking is the only real way of installing 'alternative' software.
 
This is such a sticking point for me. Android makes for an amazing emulation experience while Apple has nothing.

Maybe if they allowed this, it would put some pressure on Nintendo....


Does anybody know if it's available on Cydia?

I'm not sure putting pressure on Nintendo by facilitating its users stealing all Nintendo's games, is the sort of tactic Apple are into.
 
Fair use laws.

There is no fair use exemption for downloading ROMs.

I still don't see what sets this particular emulator apart from all other console emulators which have been judged legal. Why the other emulators have been judged to "have substantial non-infringing uses" and this one should not? Licensed copies of games can definaltey be played on this emulator like on all the others.

Because the legal emulators can play licensed games. This one can't. For example, it you created an emulator that could play directly from a Nintendo cartridge, it would be legal.

That's actually not true at least in the USA, downloading a ROM even if you have an original cartridge is still copyright infringement. In other countries your mileage may vary:

Yep. The backup exemption only implies when you create the backup.

here copyright infringement is actually fine as long as it's for personal use.

That's not true.
 
I don't understand how it's possible to download an app NOT through the App Store. I have never seen such a thing before.

How do you think developers beta test their apps with people who live far away from them? :) And how do you think big companies distribute their specialized apps internally? This has been available in some form since Apple instituted the Enterprise developer program. Of course this isn't the intended use of these programs, which is why you need to set your date back now to get it to work (the certificate used to sign the app has expired or has been revoked).

But suffice to say if your company has some in house app they want to distribute but has no business (or maybe wouldn't even be allowed) on the app store, there are ways to distribute it internally - including via the web or through third party Mobile Device Management systems- which Apple provides the API for to do it.
 
I have to agree, but since Nintendo doesn't offer their games on the App store where I can purchase them. I am left with other methods to play legacy games.

:D I think that falls under first world problems. Doesn't quite compare to the old "I need to feed my family" excuse.
 
Owning Roms are legal if you own a copy of that game already for the platform you are getting the ROM for. For example, if I own GBA games since I have a GBA SP and some games kicking around somewhere, I can download those games legally. Golden Sun 2 was pretty addicting.

Strange, I have every game available on the ROM site.....
 
I'm sure MacRumors accelerated the cancellation of their enterprise license by putting up an official post about this!

I want to play emulators too, but software that store and initialise other software are not permitted by Apple. Using the enterprise license to spread software outside an enterprise is also not permitted.

I'm happy that this works for you guys, but jail breaking is the only real way of installing 'alternative' software.
Seems like this way works just fine when it comes to installing and using it. The license would have been pulled sooner or later with or without MacRumors (given that it was covered by plenty of other sites, some even larger and more mainstream, like CNET).
 
Agreed, there is demand out there for the products. If they want to stop piracy make it available. I see the moral dilemma and want to do the right thing.
What the end user wants is not always in the best interest of a company. Nintendo making games available on iOS would mean making Nintendo devices a little less relevant, making iOS more interesting as "serious" gaming platform and becoming partially dependent on Apple's ecosystem.

The legal thing to do if you are in the USA is not to download unlicensed ROMs. That's illegal no matter what, even if you own the original game. Said that, you might consider the illegality of downloading ROMs of games you own to be unfair, which makes the decision about what is right a little more complex. My personal take? If I own the game I should be able to download the ROM.
 
Because the legal emulators can play licensed games. This one can't. For example, it you created an emulator that could play directly from a Nintendo cartridge, it would be legal.
I don't understand what you mean, emulators don't play from cartridges, emulators emulate the whole console's hardware in software. Then you can take a physical Nintendo cartridge, dump the ROM content to file and load it in the emulator. If the emulator emulates the physical console in software correctly it will execute the game. What you can also do is load a file containing an homebrew game or application: as long as the homebrew ROM is correctly programmed the emulator will execute it just fine.

Basically, the emulator doesn't care what you ask it to load, it simply emulates the specific hardware. The decision to load a licensed or unlicensed game or even a non-gaming application is yours.
 
I don't understand what you mean, emulators don't play from cartridges, emulators emulate the whole console's hardware in software. Then you can take a physical Nintendo cartridge, dump the ROM content to file and load it in the emulator. If the emulator emulates the physical console in software correctly it will execute the game. What you can also do is load a file containing an homebrew game or application: as long as the homebrew ROM is correctly programmed the emulator will execute it just fine.

Basically, the emulator doesn't care what you ask it to load, it simply emulates the specific hardware. The decision to load a licensed or unlicensed game or even a non-gaming application is yours.

It was just an example of a hypothetical situation in which an emulator would be legal.

The cases in the article you cited:

Sega v. Accolade
Accolade simply reverse engineered the Genesis software in order to create games that would play on the Genesis without having to pay Sega for a development license.

Sony v. Connectix
This case is more on point. Similar to my hypothetical example, it involved using reverse engineering to create an emulator that played the original Playstation CD-ROMs on a PC or Mac. No need to create an illegal copy.
 
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