We all carry a powerful computer in our pockets, and it’s called iPhone. It is also the most secure smartphone on the market, thanks to the security measures that Apple implements on the phone, and the restrictions when install apps that are not in your popular App Store. This may change in a few years, if Apple finally allows the installation of apps from outside its app store, although at the moment, there are no firm plans for this.

These restrictions in addition to code review processes for malicious code also restrict the emulator installation that allows the free execution of software by the user from the App Store – but this does not mean that we cannot install them on our own without going through it.

Before, to achieve this it was necessary to do jailbreak and there are even ways of installing using third-party certificates that we may not trust. However, there is a way easy to install these emulators without doing anything “weird” on our iPhone and even using nour Apple ID for added security. And you don’t even need to be a developer, or have ever touched Xcode.

How to install the MAME emulator on the iPhone

Before you start, take away your fear of tinker with Xcode – Apple’s development environment for its apps – even if you’ve used it. This guide may seem very long but it is because I have fully explained and detailed so that – precisely – no one is lost. It’s very simple, you don’t need a paid developer account: just your iPhone and your Mac.

A few months ago I told you how to install the MAME arcade emulator on Apple TV, we even ventured to compile it. This time it will not be necessary not even that, since we will directly download the already compiled version ready to generate as an Xcode project.

I have to say that in my tests, the version of MAME for iOS has evolved in an incredible way: the interface is simple, easy to use, very complete – and the quality of the emulation is impressive. Do not hesitate to try it on your iPhone to see for yourself. Let’s go there:

1.- Install Xcode. Do this first because the download is fast, but the decompression and installation of the environment may take time depending on your Mac. You just have to go to the Xcode section of the Mac App Store, and click Install.

2.- Create or use a developer account: The first thing you need is a developer account. It doesn’t have to be paid. If we don’t have any, we can create one completely free (it takes 1 minute) from this link: https://developer.apple.com/account/

2.- Download the MAME4iOS Master repository: Access the repository website and copy the address that I indicate in the following image:

3.- Open the project in Xcode: Once you have Xcode installed, open it. Possibly some more tool needs to be installed, the environment itself will tell you and it is completely automatic. Once the welcome screen appears, press “Clone an existing project” and enter the address that we have copied before:

4.- Choose the “master” branch from the drop-down menu and click “Clone”:

5.- You have just downloaded all the source code of Mame for iOS. Open Finder and navigate to where you downloaded it to open the .xcodeproj project file. By default, you will have it in: /Documents/MAME4iOS/Xcode/MAME4iOS/MAME4iOS.xcodeproj.

If you can’t find it, search for it with Spotlight. Double click on this file to open it with Xcode.

6.- Give it time, it has to process all the files the first time it opens…

7.- Before generating the executable, we are going to add two essential things: our Apple ID to sign the app and link our iPhone to install it. For the first part, open Xcode / Settings

8.- Go to the Accounts tab, click on the “+” logo and add the developer Apple ID that you created before (or already had). With this we will sign our app to be able to install it safely on our iPhone.

9.- Wire your iPhone to your Mac and open Xcode / Window / Devices and Simulators. You will see your phone connected, but not paired yet. To do this, you must unlock the iPhone with your code and “Trust” the Mac to which you have connected it.

10.- Once the iPhone is connected and paired, you don’t have to do anything else. The appearance of the screen will be similar to this:

eleven.- We close the “Devices and Similators” window and in Xcode, click where the arrow indicates first and then in the upper central part to select the “Release” version, which is the one we are going to install on our iPhone, as the image indicates:

12.- There we are going to install the Release version and the iPhone that we have paired before will have been selected. If not, select it by hand in the path from the previous step. Once this is done, you will see this error in the “Signing & Capabilities” tab:

13.- This is because we have to tell you which account to sign the app with. Select the development account that we have installed before in the drop-down.

14.- It will keep giving you an error because you have to change the “Bundle Identifier” of the app. You can change the central part that says “example”, putting what you want. I have put “pedroaznar”, but here you can put the word that you like the most (is indifferent). Press Enter and the errors will disappear and everything will be ready to install.

fifteen.- We go up to the left, and we give the huge “PLAY” button so that Xcode generates the installation. Remember to keep your iPhone connected by cable to your Mac at all times.

16.- The first installation takes some time, don’t worry and leave it with confidence. After a while a “Build Succeeded” will appear and if you look on your iPhone… you will find the nice MAME icon! Now you can disconnect the iPhone from the Mac.

The icon is cool, by the way

17.- Now we are going to send ROMs (the games) to the emulator. MAME has many ways to do it, including creating your own web server that we can open from the Mac, but we are going to make it even easier: using AirDrop. Let’s go, for example, to the MAME legal download ROMs page and download the ones you want from the Mac. Now you can send them directly via AirPlay to the iPhone. There you will be presented with a window asking what you want to open it with: select “MAME4iOS”. After a few seconds, the games will appear in the MAME interface. If not, close the app and reopen it:

ROMs can be easily AirDropped to iPhone, just open them with MAME4iOS to install

Y we already have it! The only “but” to this process is that when using a free development account, the signing of the app only lasts 7 days: that is, before seven days, if we want to continue using the app, we have to connect the iPhone to the Mac, open Xcode and just hit the “PLAY” button again. You don’t need to do anything else. The signature of the app will be updated and we will not lose any game that we already have installed.

MAME for iOS works great

The latest version of MAME for iOS is very well designed. You will see how when adding ROMs automatically downloads all the information of the game, screen, data… and the customization capability of the app is tremendous: from screen filters, different types of touch controls, importing ROMs from iCloud (in case we don’t have a Mac handy), skins…

The options of the latest version of MAME for iOS are very complete

If you also have a external console control, you can connect it to your iPhone and MAME is fully compatible. Even if you use the popular controls that are attached to the phone, such as the Razer Kishi V2 that we analyzed in Applesfera a few months ago. It is completely MAME compatible and there is absolutely nothing to configure: plug and play.

If you have a controller that can be attached to the iPhone, MAME is perfectly compatible and the gaming experience is even better.

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I hope this little tutorial will help you. learn more about Xcode (if you have never used it) and lose a bit of fear of Apple’s development environment, which we can take advantage of for small personal projects like this – and incidentally take advantage to play those mythical games of yesteryear at any time.