Apple kills iDOS for a second time
DOS emulator iDOS arrived on the App Store last year and was swiftly removed once it became clear the author had ill-advisedly bundled commercial games with it that he didn’t have the rights to. Apple was also apparently pissed that iTunes file sharing enabled you to upload your own games to the app. This, apparently, is bad and totally different from, say:
- File-sharing books to iBooks, GoodReader, Stanza and the like;
- File-sharing comics to Comic Zeal;
- File-sharing documents you’ve written to Pages;
- File-sharing practically anything to Air Sharing.
So in iDOS 2, the author removed file-sharing, resubmitted and the app found its way back to the store. The author reports it’s been pulled again, “because the ability to run custom executable is violating the appstore [sic] policy”.
These ‘custom executables’ (i.e. third-party games) can only be installed by using a third-party utility to access app bundles. Applications like iPhone Explorer and PhoneView enable users of non-jailbroken devices to mount an application bundle and access its /Documents and /Library folders. In iDOS, you could shove old DOS games in there, then fire up the command line on the app itself and load the games. Apple considers this evil, even if you, say, own the rights to the games, or they are freeware and you therefore legally have the right to run them.
My worry is that Apple will now close the backdoor to app bundles, somehow blocking access to the aforementioned folders. Few people know they exist and that you can access them, but they are massively handy, because backing up these folders is the ONLY way you can back-up content from apps and games before deleting them, and the ONLY way you can reinstate your data after a reinstall. I’ve done this myself many dozens of times—it’s the only way I can have a usable device but also not ‘lose’ the many hours I put into the likes of GTA.
Apple clearly doesn’t care about this. When you wipe an app, the data’s gone for good. This is absurdly stupid, putting iOS games on a par with cheap, nasty DS carts that don’t have battery back-ups. If Apple automatically backed up game and app states to iTunes and provided the option for reinstating this data on a reinstall, blocking backdoors would be fine, but it doesn’t. Here’s hoping I’m wrong, but knowing Apple, it favours locking down wherever possible, even if there’s really little or no reason to.
good point, hmm what a shame. As an aside, do you reckon, theres an opportunity for Save to cloud like functionality for games ala Steam Cloud!
I wonder whether Game Center is the solution for games data, although at present it seems to be for high-scores and achievements rather than general progress. Still, I want iTunes to say: “You appear to have installed Funk-o-rabbit before. Do you want your game data reinstalled?”