Marko Zivkovic
RetroArch, a popular multi-platform emulator, is now officially available on iPhone and iPad, giving gamers a way to play their favorite legacy games on the go.
Following the App Store debut of emulators such as PPSSPP, Delta, and Gamma, Apple has finished the evaluation of another emulation app.
The highly-anticipated RetroArch emulator can be installed on any iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS 14.2 or newer and is also available on iPadOS.
Game enthusiasts will now be able to enjoy their favorite titles across various Apple devices, but will have to source them independently and legally - as RetroArch only comes bundled with the game 2048.
The prominence and overall popularity of RetroArch lie in its capability to emulate a wide variety of legacy game consoles. The application can run games created for many older consoles and platforms, via libretro cores.
What retro platform RetroArch supports on iOS and iPadOS
- Amstrad CPC
- Atari 2600
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Atari Lynx
- Bandai WonderSwan
- Commodore Amiga
- Commodore 64
- Commodore 128
- Commodore CBM-II
- Commodore PET
- Commodore Plus
- Commodore VIC-20
- ColecoVision
- GCE Vectrex
- Fairchild Channel F
- Mattel Intellivision
- Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom (NES)
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)
- Nintendo Virtual Boy
- Nintendo Game Boy Color
- Nintendo Game Boy Advance
- Nintendo DS
- SNK Neo Geo
- SNK Neo Geo CD
- SNK Neo Geo Pocket
- Sega Master System
- Sega Game Gear
- Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
- Sega CD
- Sega Saturn
- Sharp X68000
- Sony PlayStation 1
- Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP)
- Sinclair ZX Spectrum
- Texas Instruments TI-83
- Thomson MO/TO
- Watara Supervision
The application is also open-source, ad-free and is available free of charge to all users. According to its App Store page, RetroArch supports a variety of features, including Made For iPhone (MFi) controllers, shaders, advanced latency management, and even AI translations.
RetroArch's App Store page indicates that the developer does not collect or track any user data from the application.
Previously, the app could be installed on jailbroken versions of iOS, or via enterprise distribution on standard versions of iOS. Apple has recently changed its approach to emulators, and an increasing number of applications like RetroArch are now available to everyone via the App Store.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
10 Comments
How do you change the language to English.
The apple versus the world battles are mostly over except things like this which try to resurface them. There is no good reason this emulator doesn't run on iOS, win 8/10/11, and Android.
It doesn’t mention this in the article, but there’s also an Apple TV version.