June 2009: Apple rejects Manomio's C64 1.0, an application emulating classic videogames originally available via the Commodore 64 home computer system, complete with a virtual joystick and keyboard, portrait and landscape gaming, and a fully-licensed C64 emulator code. Even though Manomio developed the application in conjunction with publisher Kiloo, which owns the Commodore 64 license, Apple nevertheless rejected the submission, citing an SDK clause prohibiting interpreted or executable code: "Thank you for submitting C64 1.0 to the App Store," reads Apple's letter to Manomio. "We've reviewed C64 1.0 and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it violates the iPhone SDK Agreement; ‘3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).'"
As Manomio CEO Brian Lyscarz points out, the App Store features a a number of applications that do roughly the same thing as the Commodore 64 app, among them CHIP-8 emulators, programmable calculators and Z-machine interpreter Frotz. In addition, Sega's Golden Axe and Sonic iPhone games are essentially emulators packaged with the original game ROMs. Take a video tour
