New iPhone Emulator - TouchHLE
Even though iOS is a closed system, the mobile OS still holds a lot of interest for users. That’s why the emulation community is always on the lookout for new iPhone emulators that can help them bring old 32-bit games back to life. Now a new high-level iPhone emulator called touchHLE has arrived to help with this. Launched as a full-time passion project by a single developer last December, the emulator aims to run iOS apps from the early days of the Apple device’s history. It does so by taking a different approach to traditional low-level emulators and using HLE, or high-level emulation, which allows it to run only the code in an app’s binary as well as some iOS libraries.
The emulator has been optimized for running games like Super Monkey Ball and is compatible with both mouse/keyboard or gaming controllers. It can also simulate touches on the screen, play sounds, and use joysticks to replace accelerometer commands that are used in many apps for gameplay. The creator of touchHLE, who goes by the username Hikari no Yume, says she’s proud to be able to share her work with the public. However, she wants to stress that her tool isn’t intended for piracy or reverse engineering iPhoneOS.
The GitHub repository for touchHLE includes instructions on how to run the emulator and load up Super Monkey Ball, but it can’t be guaranteed that the emulator will continue to work in the future or that additional unencrypted iOS apps will be supported. Until ARM macOS can be virtualized without an actual ARM Mac, or another emulation effort gets started, your best option for getting older iPhone apps is to wait for them to make it over to Android.