Provenance in App Review Limbo
On July 31st, 2025, the Provenance X (formerly Twitter) account posted a direct plea to the community:
“I’ve been on the phone with App Store review support 5 times now about my TestFlights not being reviewed. The longest of which was over 42 days!”
Despite repeated calls and assurances that the request would be escalated, the silence continues. No review. No rejection. Just stagnation.
And the update stuck in limbo? One of Provenance’s most anticipated yet — introducing experimental, jitless support for Dreamcast, GameCube, and Wii via non-JIT cores.
[…]
“I also received a thinly veiled threat of; ‘I can either submit this to the review team or deny support.’”
As a reminder, the current App Review guidelines specifically allow emulation of retro games so long as there is no JIT.
Via Craig Grannell:
The more I read about Apple and emulators, the more I think the company only allowed them to piss off AltStore.
The amount of dicking around Apple’s done with a whole host of emulators now is ridiculous.
I get all the arguments against JIT on iPhone. But it is quite funny that I can run perfect Dreamcast on a $150 Chinese Android handheld, and yet it runs like crap on an iPhone 16 Pro. (I’m told Dreamcast emulation is stable on an M4 iPad.)
Previously:
- iPad Air Runs Windows 11 ARM via Emulation
- Provenance Rejected From the App Store
- PPSSPP Emulator Stuck in App Review
- Mini vMac for iOS Rejected via Notarization
- iDOS 3 in the App Store
- Allowing iOS PC Emulator Apps to Download Games
- iOS Retro Console Game Emulators
