I recently wrote about iDOS for iPhone. In June, iDOS was rejected for not emulating a “retro game console”. This despite multiple emulators being approved for the App Store that don’t emulate retro game consoles. However, having initially rejected it, Apple subsequently approved UTM SE, essentially a PC emulator. Logically, then, you’d think Apple would change its mind regarding iDOS. Well, no. On 16 July, the app’s creator said his appeal had been rejected.

It’s surely now clear Apple isn’t serious about allowing emulators on the App Store. But worse: it’s not serious about level playing fields for apps either. Instead, it’s inviting emulator developers to coin-flip approvals, and perhaps (on the basis of the course of events we’ve so far witnessed) changing its mind when not doing so could cause regulatory problems, or when an app could threaten the App Store in some way by causing more people to look elsewhere. UTM, notably, was first rejected for an external app store, Apple sticking up a middle digit to EU regulation. And then when someone at Apple realised that was a very bad idea and UTM was finally approved, it was approved for the App Store as well, which dents any advantage the third-party store has.

However, that UTM is now allowed but iDOS is not is indefensible. They’re both PC emulators. Apple has been inconsistent in the past with App Store rules and approvals, but this pairing is especially stark and egregious. At this point, I wouldn’t spend a single second developing an emulator for iOS. Which is probably how Apple wants it anyway. If I were the iDOS developer, I’d lob the app at AltStore and see what happens. Or, you know, just give up, like so many other ex-iOS devs I hear from these days have already done.

What gets me is this is all so stupid and unnecessary. There’s clearly reluctance from somewhere senior in Apple about emulators. But then the company sort of changed its mind, yet provided no rules. It instead went for the developer-hostile “we’ll know it when we see it”. Only ‘it’ doesn’t mean anything specific. If it did, we wouldn’t currently have ZX81, C64 and MSX emulators on the App Store, given that they emulate hardware platforms that are not retro gaming consoles.

Another thing that’s also come under harsh criticism (and affects UTM’s performance) is Apple blocking support for JIT. This is essential for strong performance when emulating more modern systems and further hamstrings iPhone and iPad in this space. For once, I’m actually OK with this decision. And that’s because Apple has with this decision by accident ended up in a reasonably moral space regarding emulation, making it impossible to emulate modern systems that remain commercially viable. I’m very aware emulation as a whole is a grey area, but there’s a world of difference between firing up Drelbs on my iPhone and loading up a phone with Nintendo Switch titles.

So, frustrating as it might be to some people, that outcome (if not, perhaps, the mechanism) is defensible. But so much else surrounding Apple’s current approach to emulators is, at best, deeply cynical or horribly incompetent. Neither of those things is a great look.

As a fan of emulation and safeguarding gaming’s history, I find myself increasingly frustrated with Apple in this space. It has – either by intent or incompetence – created the circumstances in which iOS has a confused, messy, inconsistent emulator ecosystem.

There are some stars, such as Delta and PPSSPP. We have a cut-down RetroArch, because the creator is walking on eggshells. There’s the odd really interesting curio, like ZX81, but an awful lot of churn junk, such as terrible NES and C64 emulators.

The last of those things is in part down to Apple not providing clear direction and constantly changing the rules. It would be simple to clarify what’s allowed, but Apple never wanted emulators on the store in the first place, and only appeared to approve any to blunt AltStore’s chances and perhaps to avoid getting walloped by the EU.

App Store review is inconsistent at the best of times, but the situation with emulation is now beyond absurd. The MAME4iOS dev says their app has been rejected multiple times for ‘spam’. Apple might point to the iDOS rejection (‘iDOS is not a retro game console’) and argue MAME does not make the cut for the same reason. Yet there is a (fairly awful) Final Burn Neo arcade emulator available to download. Another error? Who knows? Either way, this doesn’t say good things about app review.

As for iDOS, that situation is now… fluid, given that Apple has approved PC emulator UTM SE. But who’s to say Apple won’t change its mind next week, depending on what it thinks it can get away with? And I do wonder what will happen if someone dares to submit an Apple II or Mac emulator for review. Perhaps they should submit it to AltStore first – that at least appears to make Apple rethink.

So three months in and, as predicted by me and others, emulation on iOS is an incoherent mess. Which probably suits Apple but further dents the platform’s credibility with a noisy contingent of gamers and makes it look inferior to Android. And Apple’s ridiculous review stance means great devs won’t bother making emulators for iPhone and iPad. Why would they? Why spend months polishing an emulator only for Apple to arbitrarily decide to reject it? (And, yes, this is the wider App Store in microcosm. Creators of other apps and games increasingly feel the same way.)

Australian Financial Review yesterday got the scoop that Canva had eaten Serif. Today, the news was confirmed. Wisely, Serif’s CEO then attempted to reassure the community that all was good, actually.

Although the press has in recent years often positioned Serif as a kind of scrappy underdog newcomer, the company has a long history. It was founded in 1987, which makes it only five years younger than Adobe. Most of its recent history has been tied up in becoming a direct competitor to Adobe – and also a direct competitor to Adobe’s business model. Through its Affinity suite, Serif offered an alternative: buy-once apps rather than subscriptions. And although I can’t imagine Serif makes anything other than a minority of its sales on iPad, the company’s superb Affinity apps for Apple’s tablet – compared to Adobe’s comparatively stumbling efforts – haven’t hurt the company’s reputation any.

Which brings us to today’s announcement. Canva now owns Serif. According to Serif’s CEO, not much will change. He claims Canva is a kindred spirit – that Canva and Serif have complementary products, hence the buyout making sense. He says the Affinity brand will continue, the apps will be developed by the same British team, and that no changes to the pricing model are planned “at this time”. But then he would say that, wouldn’t he?

I very much hope this British success story doesn’t get crushed under the weight of a comparative giant. Canva imposing its will on opinionated software with a business model that people love would be a big risk. While Affinity users might love the interface and feature set, a large number of them were drawn – and remain loyal – to the product primarily because of the business model. That’s where much of the goodwill lies. Any switch to a subscription could fatally damage the brand. I suspect Adobe would be quick to counter by unveiling a ‘designer’ Creative Cloud tier comprising Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign that just happened to be priced competitively, in an attempt to win people back.

Version 3 of the Affinity suite will probably be the moment we’ll know. You can already picture a press release stating that Canva has made the “difficult decision” to move Affinity apps to subscriptions, and a “hard choice” to move development from Nottingham to Canva HQ in Australia. I hope this won’t be the case, but we’ve seen this scenario play out so many times before. We’ll find out for sure one way or another within a year or two, and I do hope that in the same way Affinity bucked the trend with modern software, Serif bucks the trend when it comes to modern buyouts.

Apple’s being walloped by regulators, and it’s increasingly clear most of the tech press doesn’t understand antitrust. Fortunately, Ian Betteridge does, so go and read his blog.

My take, honestly, is all this just makes me feel a bit sad. I like a lot of what Apple does. Even if I didn’t write about Apple, I’d have an iMac, an Apple TV or two, an iPhone, and an iPad. But Apple as it grows (and is expected by the markets to continue doing so) has overreached in some cases, and enacted dark patterns elsewhere.

I imagine a lot of people are rushing to defend Apple by default because, in part, they remember when the company nearly winked out of existence. Others, perhaps, because the company does objectively do an awful lot of things really well, and seems to care more than most rivals about what matters. But that doesn’t excuse the bad stuff, nor that in some cases Apple has decided it’s OK to just be ‘least bad’. That isn’t good enough.

I don’t want an MLS nav item forced on me in Apple TV. I want to install Retroarch on my iPhone. I don’t want ads in the App Store trying to trick me into installing something other than what I searched for. And I don’t want devs of apps I love to partake in a lottery with every single update they file. Small things, of course, but all of these little pieces – from millions and millions of users, businesses and creators – add up.

If nothing else, what happens next will be interesting. But mostly, I hope it will be beneficial, leading to a better future for consumers and Apple alike, even if the Apple that emerges is in key ways different from the one we have today.

As ably documented by Michael Tsai, Apple Arcade’s future is looking rocky. This comes from reports Apple’s rowing back on new content and paying less to developers.

Honestly, I always thought Apple Arcade was a strange move for Apple, given that it’s never seemed there was anyone sufficiently senior at the company who genuinely cares about gaming. Music and typography are infused in Apple’s DNA. Gaming is too often presented as something cool to show off the power of new devices, or comes across from Apple execs as a weird thing people waste time on. No new M-series chip or gaming toolkits will get us past that.

However, specifically on Apple Arcade, while I thought it was a weird decision, I’m nonetheless glad it exists. Because it’s objectively good. Sure, people who claim the only ‘real games’ are AAA (and who even attempt to dismiss the Switch, let alone mobiles) won’t give it a chance. But there are loads of fun titles, even if much of the service’s strength now lies in ‘+’ fare (existing App Store releases minus ads/IAP) rather than exclusives. It’s superb for kids who like mobile games (again: no ads; no IAP). And there are still interesting new things to play. (I mean, Arcade added a pinball game at one point. And pinball is pretty niche!)

For me, the main error Apple Arcade made was during its launch. It offered too much, too soon. It was simultaneously overwhelming and somehow yet made people think they could blaze through everything and instantly demand more. And more didn’t come for a long while, and so users felt they weren’t getting good value, even though Arcade at the time cost only five bucks per month.

Retention then became the driver, as subscribers dried up, extinguishing much of the original direction of the service (quality; games as art; experiments; uniqueness) for friendlier and grindy fare that is too often akin to freemium with the IAP ripped out. It’s hard to see where things go now. Maybe the future of Apple Arcade will be mostly + games, thereby turning it into Apple’s equivalent of Google Play Pass, rather than a place to exhibit the pinnacle of mobile games.

Perhaps I’m being unfair, but Apple Arcade feels like the same old story with Apple and gaming: what success occurs is in many ways despite rather than because of Apple’s decisions and direction. I do hope things improve. I won’t hold my breath. Had I been doing so with Apple and gaming, I’d have expired within a year of getting my first Mac, way back in the 1990s.