I’ve recently become quite the retrogaming fan. My dad’s old PS1 gave me the impulsto download some emulators. I figured what’s cooler than an emulator on the iPad. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t allow third party apps and there are no emulators in the AppStore.

AltStore
Still, there is a way to install IPA files on iOS/iPadOS. You can sign multiple apps at the same time with your normal AppleID. This works via AltStore. Apple then thinks that you only want to test your self-made apps. I have tried the whole thing and must say, it works great.

The downside of signing your apps yourself is that they are only valid for 7 days, then you have to re-sign them. Keep that in mind! Thanks to Altstore, this is relatively simple. You need to have your computer on the same WIFI as your iOS/iPadOS device, then the apps should refresh themselves. My Computer is connecting to my network via Ethernet, so the Apps won’t refresh via WIFI. AltStore even has IOS 14 Widgets, that shwo you when you have to resign your Apps! It’s super cool and practical.

Emulator PPSSPP
As emulator I use PPSSPP, with which you can emulate PSP games. I was able to play all games with 10x rendering resolution on my IPad Pro 2018. It’s really amazing what you can do with such an iPad, even if Apple doesn’t like it.

I tested many games starting from Lego Start Wars / Lego Indiana Jones to Tony Hawk’s underground 2. Anything ran with at least 30FPS. It’s really awesome to be able to run PSP games on your IPad basically anywhere.

When I tried to uninstall PPSSPP the other day, I noticed that the space is still occupied by the app, despite the fact that it has been deleted. It didn’t show in the settings that PPSSPP was still there, but my iPad was 40GB short. The solution was quite simple. Simply install PPSSPP again via AltStore, uninstall it again and bang, the storage was available again.

Alternatives?
An alternative to PPSSPP is RetroArch, however I find PPSSPP better because it has a fairly simple user interface that everyone understands. RetroArch on the contrary has extremely many functions and is quite confusing in my opinion. It must also be said that with RetroArch you can emulate far more than just PPSSPP, there are many other emulators that are included in the app.

This unofficial emulator is really a cool thing if you want to emulate retro games on the go.I’m really curious to see how the performance is on the new M1 iPad. It must really be a blast if you ask me!