There’s been a lot of excitement around emulators heading to the iPhone of late, and rightly so. We iPhone users (and there are 1.46 billion of us out there) have always had a harder time getting hold of emulators for our smartphones than ‘the android guys’, sitting there and wondering if the grass is always greener on the Android side.
Apple has recently allowed emulators onto their official app store. Previously, using the Alt Store or Jailbreaking were the only options to get emulators on iPhone, but with the arrival of Delta available for us to download just by simply looking at our phones and using Face ID, playing our games on the go has never been simpler.
Check out our list of the best emulators available for iPhone users, all of which we’ve tested over the year, as well as news on the emulators we can expect to see coming to the official App Store soon!
Table of Contents
1. Delta
Delta brings tonnes of exciting features to the table (or your iPhone, in this case) including skins that turn your phone screen into a bonafide classic handheld. And it’s available to download straight from the App Store on your phone!
Delta emulates all of our favourite old Nintendo consoles; we’re talking all the Gameboys from DMG to GBA, the SNES, and the mighty N64! Ocarina of Time, Killer Instinct, and Pokemon Gold, all from your iPhone.
And unlike the old days when I used to have to worry about batteries dying before I found a save point, players can make save states and sync them with the cloud wherever they are. Use cheats too to get the upper edge over those tougher levels!
And perhaps the best part about this app is that you just need to visit the App Store – there’s no jailbreaking or need to head to the Alt Store for Delta anymore!
2. Provenance
Provenance, like the 6th emulator in this list and also my personal favourite emulator interface ‘OpenEMU’, is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. It supports multiple consoles right from your iPhone, meaning you can dive into Atari, Sega, Nintendo, and Playstation games all on your iPhone, and all without jailbreaking.
If you have the AltStore, then it’s incredibly easy to download and get going, and the ROM library browser is very well organised too. There’s nothing I like more than a nicely organised list with all of my game images there for me to see!
This emulator also has external controller compatibility too, giving you more grip over your gaming rather than taking up some of the screen with your smudgy thumbs! And now that we have news that the developer is bringing Provenance to the App Store, it will soon be easier to download than ever!
3. Eclipse
Eclipse emulator is one of the best for iOS, as it boasts the title of “The Unrevokable Multi-Emulator”. The team over at Apple runs a pretty tight ship when it comes to what is allowed to be on the official App Store, and a big problem for questionable apps is the dreaded “revoke”.
Eclipse is actually web-based, so you don’t even need to wait for it to appear on the App Store. That’s right. you can play your ROMs directly on any web browser on any device strong enough to support it.
Offering near-perfect gameplay for NES, GB, GBC, and GBA games, the Eclipse emulator is perfect for Nintendo-heads, like myself.
4. PPSSPP
PPSSPP is the best emulation program currently available for playing Sony Playstation Portable games, another app that has been announced for the App Store by developer Henrik Rydgård, hopefully arriving before the end of the year. And, needless to say, it also comes with an iOS port, making PSP gameplay easy on the iPhone!
The reason PPSSPP is the best program to play PSP games is because of the many enhancements for HD gameplay. You can expect to run games at double the original resolution while playing on iOS!
So if you are the type of player who does not need an all-purpose program and just wants to get straight to the point to play PSP games, then this is gonna be the best emulator for you on iPhone.
Check out our list of the Best PSP Games while you’re at it.
5. iNDS
iNDS is a Nintendo DS console emulator made for iOS. The original iteration of the program was only available on jailbroken iOS devices, but the latest iteration works on just regular iOS devices.
The creators if iNDS have the parent application called iEmulators which works as the jump-off point to get iNDS set up on your iOS device. The iEmulators app also includes its own ROM search feature to make finding games super easy.
So the team behind the program has thought about how to work around the strict Apple limitations.
6. RetroArch
Okay people… by now, you are probably sick of hearing about it. We never stop talking about RetroArch; it made an appearance on our list of Mac Emulators and Emulators For PC, so you probably saw it coming.
The list of console support is constantly growing. Right now it includes NES, SNES, GB, GBA, Sega Genesis, Nintendo 64, Atari 2600, Nintendo DS, Sega Dreamcast, Sony Playstation just to name a few. It plays almost everything.
Many of the emulation programs developed for retro consoles are open-source and typically happy to allow their code to be reworked or repurposed in other programs. So one of the main reasons you may want to just skip most of the solo-console type emulation programs is because RetroArch includes many of those all in one package.
If you have one specific console in mind, and there is an app for it… grab that. But if you want an all-purpose gaming solution, RetroArch is easily the one for you. And, as you may have guessed by its appearance, it also has a full port to iOS, making it the absolute best emulator for iPhone in 2023.
7. DolphiniOS
If you want to play GameCube and Wii titles on your iPhone, then DolphiniOS could well be the best emulator for iPhone that you’ve read in this list so far.
I’m going to say this now though before I go on – don’t be trying to run this on an iPhone 4. GC and Wii games take A LOT of processing power, so we recommend that you have a newer model for the best results. It will work on iPhone 6 and up, but the faster your chip, the better the performance will be.
DolphiniOS is only for emulating Nintendo consoles, but are there really any other consoles that matter? Contractually I have to say that there are, but we all know how I really think. Add cheats, play online, and take all your favourite Nintendo games with you!
8. Game Play Color
We’re finishing this list off with another emulator that requires no downloading, making it one of the easiest to use of all time. All you really need to do is add the app to your home screen, and ‘Bob’s your uncle (which means ‘you’ve done it’ if you live in Yorkshire, UK).
As this is a web app, all you need is to make sure that you have an internet browser app, and that’s it. You don’t need to worry about storing ROM images of your game carts anywhere convoluted; just access Google Drive and select them from there!
This iPhone emulator plays DMG and GBC games, so if you don’t want to take your Nintendo Switch out with you and access the GB player on there, then you can tackle your favourite games in-between scrolling on Instagram and FaceTiming your Mum to show her how the DVD player works.
