Although it’s never been in either Apple or Nintendo’s graces, GBA4iOS has long been one of our favorite apps on iOS. An excellent Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance emulator for the iPhone and iPad, GBA4iOS was long available to install on iOS 7 and above, no jailbreak required.
That all changed with iOS 8.1, though. To install itself without going through the App Store, GBA4iOS required users to set back their date by at least one day, but Apple patched it out. It was a huge bummer, but guess what? GBA4iOS is back, it works on iOS 8.1, and there’s still no jailbreak required!
Yesterday, GBA4iOS developer Riley Testut sent word out on Twitter that GBA4iOS 2.1 Open Beta was now available from iEmulators.com:
Hey guys, I know you’ve waited a (really) long time for this, but GBA4iOS 2.1 is finally here! We’ll be releasing the final version to everyone in the near future, but we’ve decided that this beta is stable enough to let you all download it before everyone else, as thanks for sticking with us this entire time. You can mostly think of this version as the GM – as far as we know it’s complete, but there might be some final bugs you may discover. Regardless, it’s more than stable enough for you to download, play your games on, and of course play with the beta version of Wireless Linking, so enjoy! :)
I’ve given the open beta of GBA4iOS 2.1 a spin on my iPhone 6, and it works great. Better than ever, even, because the bigger screen sizes of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus make playing Gameboy games on the go a lot more enjoyable.
One thing that Riley Testut cautions is that Apple has historically figured out how he is installing GBA4iOS on non-jailbroken devices, and revoked the mechanism, so GBA4iOS 2.1 might not be available for long. However, this time, Testut is also submitting GBA4iOS to Cydia, so even if Apple manages to lock GBA4iOS off of non-jailbroken devices forever, there will be recourse for jailbreakers who don’t want to give up on their Minish Cap saves.
You can install GBA4iOS 2.1 Open Beta by visiting the link below on your iPhone or iPad.
Source: iEmulators
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
12 responses to “The best Gameboy Advance emulator for iOS is back, no jailbreak required”
I get a message saying
Unable to Download App
GBA4iOS could not be installed at this time
same here
Simply change the date to 2012 before downloading :)
Hope we won’t see another security alert called “GBA4 Attack” in the next few weeks.
Worked great and immediately for me. Iphone 6+ 8.1 verizon. Thanks Riley!
yeah, it’s gone.
Best news I’ve gotten all day.
I can’t install either. “could not be installed at this time”
I’ve actually JB my 6. But I can’t find it there on Cydia yet.
This does NOT work! I have iPhone 6. Do NOT update to iOS 8.1! Thanks a lot Cult of Mac!!!
Where do I download the games?
I had it working on my 5s running 8.1.0, but after getting 8.1.1 it no longer works.
After getting the message Unable to Download App, GBA4iOS could not be installed at this time” I changed the date on my phone to the 17th and it worked!