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Delta Emulator for iOS is Now Available In The official App Store

GeoSn0wby GeoSn0w••0
Delta Emulator for iOS is Now Available In The official App Store
Delta Emulator for iOS is Now Available In The official App Store

Apple did it! They finally allowed Emulator applications to be uploaded to the official iOS App Store. This is most unusual from Apple, considering that Emulators, including Delta Emulator, were banned for years on the App Store with Apple seemingly adamant on keeping it that way.

In light of this change, developer Riley Testut has uploaded the widely popular Delta Emulator to the iOS App Store making it available to download without having to sideload it.

Delta emulator allows you to play your favorite classic / retro games on iOS effortlessly. With support training from GBA, N64, SNES, DS, and GEN, to the popular NES, you can play most of the popular retro games on your iPhone, for free today.

Delta Emulator is officially in the App Store.
Delta Emulator is officially in the App Store

What is Delta Emulator?

Delta emulator developed by Riley Testut, the man behind AltStore, a widely popular sideloading system for iOS, started as an IPA file that you either install through AltStore or sideload with your favorite tool.

Once Delta was installed you could load various game ROMs and play them directly on your iPhone or iPad, a fantastic app for all retro gaming enthusiasts.

Of course, since you had to sideload it using various unapproved methods, the app was prone to revokes and expiration every 7 days.

As of April 17th, 2024, the Delta emulator is now officially on the App Store which means no more revokes.

Here are all the supported gaming platforms:

  • Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System
  • Nintendo 64
  • Game Boy (Color)
  • Game Boy Advance
  • Nintendo DS

According to Riley Testut, more platforms will be supported soon.

Delta Emulator on iOS. Credit: Apple / Riley Testut
<strong>Delta Emulator on iOS Credit Apple Riley Testut<strong>
Delta Emulator on iOS. Credit: Apple / Riley Testut
Delta Emulator on iOS Credit Apple Riley Testut

Delta also supports a variety of controllers so that you can play your favorite retro games more easily. Here are all the supported controllers currently:

  • Nintendo Switch Pro controllers, Joy-Cons
  • Nintendo Switch Online controllers (NES, SNES, N64)
  • PlayStation 4 DualShock 4 Controller,
  • PlayStation 5 DualSense Controller.
  • Xbox One S, Xbox Series X Controller
  • MFi game controllers.
  • Bluetooth & wired keyboards

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to play your favorite games using Delta and a controller or keyboard you have around.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a physical controller, as Delta does have its virtual controller on-screen built in and it’s pretty good and responsive.

IMPORTANT

Playing games using Delta involves using ROMs. Having ROMs of games is not necessarily illegal or piracy as long as you use them for archival purposes and you own the game in physical format, but the laws are a bit gray in this area and may vary depending on your region.

Please check your local laws related to this.

It’s also worth noting that many game companies are particularly twitchy about emulation and ROMs distribution, so we will not list any ROMs here, and you should avoid distributing them too. I

There are some other interesting features Delta comes with, such as the ability to save the state of any game, enable cheats in games, etc.

You can also sync your game saves, controller schemes, and settings directly to Google Drive or DropBox for safekeeping.

Delta Emulator also has support for the delta:// URL scheme which allows you to jump directly into a specific game from the browser.

How to download the Delta emulator from the App Store?

If you live outside Europe, you should be able to download the Delta emulator directly from the App Store on your iPhone or iPad.

Simply follow the steps below to install the Delta emulator on iOS:

  1. Open the official iOS App Store
  2. Search for Delta Emulator
  3. Tap the app result by Testut Tech, it should have a purple logo with a triangle / Greek delta.
  4. Tap install
  5. You should be able to find Delta on your Home Screen.

Why is Delta Emulator not available in the European iOS App Store?

As you can see from above, you have to be on the United States or other non-European App Store versions to be able to download Delta.

There is a simple explanation for this coming directly from Riley Testut on Discord. It boils down to the fact that according to the new Apple Developer Terms, Apple would have Riley pay $0.50 per Delta download in Europe, so it made no financial sense considering the app is free.

Instead, you can get Delta in Europe from Riley’s official Apple-approved (yes, that is a thing in Europe now) third-party App Store, called AltStore PAL which just launched.

The catch with AltStore PAL is that you have to be on iOS 17.4 or newer, and it costs €1.50/year (+ VAT) which covers Apple’s Service fee.

More iDevice Central guides

GeoSn0w is an iOS and Jailbreak enthusiast who has been around for quite some time in the community. He developed his own jailbreaks before and is currently maintaining iSecureOS, one of the first iOS Anti-Malware tools for jailbroken devices. He also runs the iDevice Central on YouTube with over 149.000 Subscribers!

With over a decade of iOS jailbreak experience and several jailbreak tools built by him, GeoSn0w knows the jailbreak scene quite well having been part of several releases over the years.

GeoSn0w is also a programmer focused primarily on iOS App Development and Embedded programming. He codes in Swift, Objective-C and C, but also does PHP on the side.

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