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Comment by tjoff | Hacker News Reader

Not being in the apple world I wondered if this submission meant anything had changed regarding running stuff like this on iOS, but no:

>Why isn't this in the AppStore?

Apple does not permit any apps that has interpreted or generated code therefore it is unlikely that UTM will ever be allowed. However, there are various ways people on the internet have come up to side load apps without requiring a jailbreak. We do not condone or support any of these methods.

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> 2.5.2 Apps [may not] download, install, or execute code which introduces or changes features or functionality of the app, including other apps.

The rule changed, I think around the time that Swift Playgrounds came out, to add:

> Educational apps designed to teach, develop, or allow students to test executable code may, in limited circumstances, download code provided that such code is not used for other purposes. Such apps must make the source code provided by the Application completely viewable and editable by the user.

There are probably plenty of apps that do interpret downloaded code (the Frotz app to play old text adventures comes to mind) and fly under the radar. But Apple would surely be on the lookout for any kind of emulator, due to the legal risk.

There's no legal risk. Microsoft allows people to install emulators on their OS without issue.

The issue is that Apple wants a big profit cut on each app. If you were allowed to download & run applications on your own computer, then Apple wouldn't get its cut.

That may be one factor, but it certainly isn't the only one. There are plenty of remote desktop apps on the App Store. But Steam Link was held up in review because Apple did not want people being able to buy games without getting a cut.

Microsoft "allows" people to install emulators in the same sense that Apple "allows" it on macOS, but a quick search confirms that Microsoft does not allow emulators on their app store, nor does Google. (These policies may specifically be for video game emulation, which is mostly what the legal grey area covers.)

Google play has emulators, here are some examples [1] [2]

It even has Bochs [3]

Or am I misunderstanding something?

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.explusalph...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mupen64plu...

[3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforg...

Yeah, could be allowed. I did a fast search and there were records of apps such as SuperRetro16 being kicked out. But I don't know if it's a policy that is poorly enforced, or the removals were for some other reason.

One off.

You can run seemingly unrestricted python code on your iOS devices with Pythonista [0]. I'm using it right now to proxy my hotspot connection through my iPhone.

Not sure how they're allowed to exist on the app store, but it's been solid for me for a while now.

[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pythonista-3/id1085978097

Pythonista has been featured by Apple several times. As others have pointed out, only pure-Python modules can be used unless they are precompiled and included with the app.

it is categorized as a learning application, but I am quite curious how you made a proxy with it.

I guess he made an app that open a port to let user to connect to it and proxy-ing the request

Interpreted code is fine for most cases, but compiling is a big no no. Which is unfortunate and limiting

This is just not true. There are many emulators in AppStore, from i48 (which runs HP 48's native Saturn ROM), to ZORK, which runs PDP-11 binary of said game underneath, along with emulated RT-11 (or was it RSX-11?).

Maybe it is emulators that generate code internally and these do not? I know that was why MSX emulators were forbidden while they cannot really hurt Apple sales...

Anyway; I don't know if these emulators maybe do not generate code or are written with Core JS (for the most part) which apparently is allowed.

Apple's control-freaking and exploitation of customers has reached peak unreasonableness. I don't think SJ would've been so focused on making trillions when some billions could be had with cooler, repairable, lasting products. Personally, I have one foot out of the door (hackintosh) regarding the Apple ecosystem. I'm going to let the iPhone 6S, iPad Pro 10.5 and Apple Watch 4 run however long they can, but that's probably it for me, I'll stick to repairable devices like my ThinkPad T480.

It's ironic that Woz especially wanted to bring computing to the masses, not lock it down. Apple is the antithesis of its own founders' vision.

Apple deserves to be disrupted.

I'd imagine most of those who would have need/interest in running this would probably have a developer account and could just compile and install it themselves.

Now a days you don’t even need a developer account for testing on your device if I remember right.

You can pay for a developer account ($99/yr) which allows you to get your builds signed by Apple for the purposes of you running either dev-builds locally or internal-only apps for an organization.

That's what they mean by "no jailbreak required". Flipside is you gotta pay for a dev account to get your stuff signed to allow it to run.

You need to pay a subscription to run your own code on your own device? Why anyone puts up with Apple's anticonsumerism is beyond me.

Security. Privacy. Long term support of hardware (environment). No carrier crapware.

> Security

This is arguable. The amount of CVEs is pretty high for a closed-source platform. Several of those CVEs were exploited in the wild for years before being fixed.

Unfortunately this is true for the other commonly-used mobile OS as well.

...which just lends more credence to the notion that you can pretend to be safe and lose your freedom, or you can face the reality that security isn't going to be perfect either way, and keep your freedom too.

I don’t see this being any worse than their competitors, and the long term support of hardware means that when they fix them you’re more likely to get the fix.

Counting CVEs is not a good way of comparing security between software.

You don't even need a (paid) developer account. Anyone with an apple id can sign ios apps with a validity of 7 days.

Not dynamically loaded libraries after 13.3.1, however.

General consensus is that this is a bug though. Apple has not come out with any announced change.

> You can pay for a developer account ($99/yr) which allows you to get your builds signed by Apple

So to test this on my iPhone, I need 1. to buy a Mac and 2. pay for an annual Apple development permission subscription.

You really can’t make a platform worse than this, and I say that as an iPhone owner. It’s so frustrating!

Can’t they publish this as a “test-flight” beta like for instance iSH does?

No they are incorrect. That used to be the case but now you don’t need to pay a developer for testing on your own device. Only when you want to publish the app to App Store or need some specific developer feature like iCloud is when you need to pay.

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