Apple gives c64 emulator the boot

posted Sep 9th 2009 12:00pm by
filed under: iphone hacks, macs hacks

apple_boots_c64_emulator

After making it to the top 20 in most regions, Apple has removed the c64 emulator for the iPhone from the App Store. Apparently the thorough app review process didn’t discover that the BASIC system had not been removed from the app, but was instead merely hidden.

Another revision of the emulator has been submitted for review but how long will that take?  What is the review process for if they’re not looking deep enough to find specific functions they don’t want an app to have? Approving apps and pulling them a few days later is another Hot Coffee waiting to happen.

[POCKET GAMER via Slashdot]



37 Responses to Apple gives c64 emulator the boot

  • napalm says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:15 pm

    This is a good reason why Apple sucks, they do the strangest things for the lamest reasons. How come their app team not catch that? (‘cus their not the sharpest tools in the shed)

    Reply Report comment
  • rkor123 says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:26 pm

    Why exactly is the c64 emulator OK, but when it has BASIC, it isn’t? Is there some sort of vulnerability?

    Reply Report comment
  • bort says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    fuck apple

    Reply Report comment
  • N0QBH says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    One more reason not own one.

    Reply Report comment
  • drew says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:43 pm

    apple blows

    wow i’m the fifth poster and still not an apple fanboy in sight

    wait this is hack a day we all know they dont tinker

    Reply Report comment
  • salsa says:
    September 9, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    OK Drew, I’ll step in here– you’re all a bunch of jealous haters. Show me something better than an iPhone and then these insults might have a chance of holding some water. (Pre-emptive rebuttal: the Pre and Android phones are not prime-time ready.)

    Why do people give a crap about this at all??? It’s silly to expect Apple to care so much about nostalgia computing that they change the terms of the App Store to allow interpreted code.

    If you want to program on the thing, just jailbreak and get yourself a shell and python– it’s /very/ easy.

    Reply Report comment
  • Haku says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    Think different.

    Wasn’t that an Apple slogan once? I think it’s now morphed into:

    Don’t think.

    Reply Report comment
  • spacecoyote says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    //Show me something better than an iPhone// nokia’s internet tablets. runs fully hackable unlocked maemo linux, and was out 5 months ahead of the original iphone.

    Reply Report comment
  • Tatsh says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:11 pm

    I do not agree with Apple’s App Store developer agreement but I do think this:

    They should have followed the agreement in my opinion. You either want to make money or you do not. Apple are not a bunch of dummies; they found the hidden BASIC interpreter here. I know the developers probably thought it would be clever to hide it in some way. It should have simply not been there. Who is making BASIC apps for it anyway? Everyone is just going to use this to run the old warez games that came off BBS, and try to re-live the 80′s.

    Reply Report comment
  • spacecoyote says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    except that in the 80′s even apple had basic.

    Reply Report comment
  • CG says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    The emulator should be kept off the app store because it was build on Frodo, which is open source. You should not have to pay for the emulator.

    Reply Report comment
  • spacecoyote says:
    September 9, 2009 at 1:23 pm

    as long as they give you the source code when you buy it, they’re not breaking the gpl. open source does not always mean free of charge.

    Reply Report comment
  • john says:
    September 9, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    @drew, salsa, etc. This isn’t about mac fandom or about the cool factor of the iPhone. It’s about owning things you buy. When I buy a computer, I have the right and ability to run any arbitrary program I can find. Why should a PDA or mobile phone be any different? My theory: Apple is reaping the benefits of a software monopoly on their own hardware for now, but they are aware that this is not a sustainable situation. Sooner or later there’s going to be a competing device with really good support of Flash or something like it, allowing people to write and share apps without any manufacturer’s say-so, and Apple will have to follow suit.

    Reply Report comment
  • rachael says:
    September 9, 2009 at 2:23 pm

    they dont want basic because they dont allow interpreter, but they are okey with you feed it an actual binary with 6510 code ? doesnt make sense but that is maybe that think differently thing?
    How have they gone about the licening of charrom, kernal and basic rom ?

    Reply Report comment
  • spacecoyote says:
    September 9, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    they got permission from commodore. i wonder if anyone had to get permission from microsoft (bill wrote C64 basic)

    Reply Report comment
  • st2000 says:
    September 9, 2009 at 3:09 pm

    I want MAME on my iPhone / iTouch !

    Yeeh, that’s what I want.

    Hack that!

    Reply Report comment
  • aztraph says:
    September 9, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    amen spacecoyote: i love my nokia. and who cares about the emulator when you have one c64 and 2 trash 80′s stashed away.

    Reply Report comment
  • Ben Ryves says:
    September 9, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    rachael: You can’t load your own binaries in the emulator, just the games that it has bundled.

    Reply Report comment
  • rachael says:
    September 9, 2009 at 5:45 pm

    they dont need permision from microsoft, they sold the full rights to the basic to commodore. that was basic 1.x that was on the pet, every other machine had inhouse developed versions based on that.

    Reply Report comment
  • rachael says:
    September 9, 2009 at 5:47 pm

    Ben Ryves: so its basicly just a rip off ? take a free available emulator, not a very good one at that, and then stick a gui for iphone on it and sell it with some crappy game, Sound like something a bigcorp would do

    Reply Report comment
  • Oldbitcollector says:
    September 9, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    Yet one more reason not to by one…

    Reply Report comment
  • tjhooker says:
    September 9, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    One person tried inline encryption on one once and they caught it too, so obfuscation doesn’t sneak anything in.

    Reply Report comment
  • Harvey Birdman says:
    September 9, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    Hey, I know they think I paid for my iPhone but didn’t.

    I only *licensed* them the use of the money until I revoked the right at future time of my choosing.

    They should have read my fine print.

    So I demand that money back now.

    Reply Report comment
  • therian says:
    September 9, 2009 at 11:41 pm

    Keep buying shiny iPhones, iPods and other overpriced crap. Keep haking it, jailbraking it, create all sorts of software to overcome limitations Apple put on purpose. Keep
    making crutches and making excuses that dildo Aplle sticking in you but inst that bad if you lubricate it enough. Keep feding them and grow their policy to you. Maybe soon others will realize if Apple can screw their customer tnan they can do it too, do you really want this for shiny piece of plastic ?

    >>>”you’re all a bunch of jealous haters. Show me something better than an iPhone”

    Any Pocket PC will beat Iphone to
    nothing, in performance, comfort and
    number of software, Windows Mobile look like open source when compared to locked in every way iPnone. It funny to see when something get released for iPhone like Skype and make into big news like something revolutionary new happen, while Skype was available for PPC and many phones for more than 5 years!

    Actually you hater of yourself for buying crap and madly realizing it now.

    Im not against Apple I against crap they put on their own customers and newer get guilty for this.
    It newer apper clear for me why people (smart people, not only shepple) continue buying it instead of boycotting this pseudo monopoly

    Reply Report comment
  • jme says:
    September 10, 2009 at 12:29 am

    @salsa:
    >> Show me something better than an iPhone and then these insults might have a chance of holding some water.

    When did cut, copy and paste become classified as a feature! Really this is a joke to think that they can label something that any $5 phone from a department store can do as a sale feature.

    I thinkt he iphone has a good GUI but that’s about it. it looks good. big deal.

    Reply Report comment
  • Pilotgeek says:
    September 10, 2009 at 12:51 am

    @salsa- “Show me something better than an iPhone and then these insults might have a chance of holding some water. ”

    Anything is better than an Iphone.
    I do love the interface, but what else does it have that others don’t?

    If only they would’ve improved on the Newton line… those were amazing. Still use my Emate on a daily basis. Can’t make calls, but I can run whatever the hell I want on it =).

    Reply Report comment
  • greybeard says:
    September 10, 2009 at 12:57 am

    Hmmm,
    Think different….
    But dont think differently to us

    Sigh… They used to be the good guys…

    Reply Report comment
  • bearchild says:
    September 10, 2009 at 2:55 am

    Why can’t people use apps on a jailbreaked iPhone instead? Apple’s dickery may be annoying, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it.

    Reply Report comment
  • sgt. renfrew says:
    September 10, 2009 at 9:27 am

    @salsa: What’s better than iPhone? Android, anything windows mobile, anything Palm. OK I admit that the widows mobile user interface sucks, but it can actually do things, and YOU CAN INSTALL WHATEVER GOD DAMN APPS YOU WANT. Palm may be moribund but there’s already an app for everything so it doesn’t really matter and YOU CAN INSTALL WHATEVER GOD DAMN APPS YOU WANT, usually for free.

    Reply Report comment
  • sgt. renfrew says:
    September 10, 2009 at 9:30 am

    @greybeard: Were they the good guys, since the Apple IIe? Maybe you’re just finally seeing through the facade.

    Reply Report comment
  • greybeard says:
    September 11, 2009 at 12:36 am

    @sgt. renfrew,

    I have been P’od with Apple for ages…

    Yeah, the appleIIe was kool but, in its time,
    the very first Macintosh was truly the koolest
    thing since sliced bread…
    Totally silent, decent GUI, beautifully designed..

    In those days Apple were truly on the side of the
    “different thinkers”. A number of my Uni mates
    worked at both the Apple & MS research labs…
    People who thought differently were in demand
    and their ideas actually flowed into the products..

    IMHO these days they have been harpooned by the marketing idiots. “Form over function” is now the motto.

    I mean REALLY guys…:
    - normal humans can’t even change
    the batteries in an iPod…
    - You PAY MONEY for a song and can ONLY play it on
    Apple HW
    - If you wanna build iPhone apps (legally) then the development environment only runs on an INTEL mac.. (taking the piss out of all the faithful “G” series developers..)

    etc., etc..

    In my opinion they have become just as monopolistic and greedy as other large companies that do not need to be mentioned..

    The iStore issues are just another example of this…

    Reply Report comment
  • Jaz says:
    October 21, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    Who cares … you get 5 shitty games that you’ll play once or twice and delete it and feel ripped off. Apple is doing us all a favor

    Reply Report comment
  • Jaz says:
    October 21, 2009 at 7:33 pm

    > Sigh… They used to be the good guys…

    Eh ? When was that exactly … back in the 80s ?

    Why do people always think Apple has sold out when all they ever intended to do from the get go was go out and sell.

    Reply Report comment
  • Jaz says:
    October 21, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    iPhone is the best !

    You love it.

    I love it.

    I love you.

    Let’s have babies.

    We’ll have 3. A boy , a girl and half-half we’ll call PocketPC.

    Reply Report comment
  • aceb says:
    October 26, 2009 at 10:11 am

    I have a Touch Diamond2.

    The UI sucked

    It took me a while, but now I have a UI that is almost as good as the iPhone UI (via iPhoneToday), a much much much better keyboard (TouchPal) and of course a better camera, ability to multitask, a screen with higher screen-res, a superior PIM and freedom to do whatever I like with MY phone.

    The ONE thing iPhone has got going for it is the UI, the rest…. nope….

    One day when they hack Android to work on the Diamond2, I can even switch OS at my leisure.

    So yeah, a stock Diamond2 might not be quite as cool as a stock iPhone, but you get more hardware for your buck and you can put together your OWN phone and end up with something that is much cooler.

    I am soooo glad I did not go the iPhone route

    I use the stock ROM btw…

    Reply Report comment
  • aceb says:
    October 26, 2009 at 10:12 am

    and why the f… is it forbidden to run BASIC on your phone?????

    Reply Report comment
  • Fernblatt says:
    May 17, 2010 at 1:40 pm

    LOL Sad, very sad when you consider the number of programs…. upmmm apps there are just for making fart noises!!!!!!

    Strange, Apple, very strange.

    T

    Reply Report comment

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