10 ms·

PlayCover: Run iOS apps and games on the M1 Mac

122 points by mmastrac 5y ago

leshokunin 5y ago
This sounds very promising! I imagine that eventually it’ll integrate with some way to find IPAs, and have a simpler way to detect input. Good start
raitom 5y ago
Ah perfect! I really wanted to play Genshin Impact on my M1 MBA!
post_break 5y ago
I hate that I have to ask this, will Apple be able to shut this down?
- woleium 5y ago
  If a software producer sells or distribues their program outside of the Apple app store then Apple can't stop them, but they could kick them out of the app store. I can't see why they would do that though, as it would be a loose loose situation. As long as it's a separate platform my guess is that they will ignore it?
  - post_break 5y ago
    Yeah but I remember there was a hack to get the IPA's to run on M1 and then Apple shut that down somehow.
    - d3nj4l 5y ago
      It wasn’t a hack, you can just install IPAs normally, apple just added a server side check to prevent you from doing that for apps that weren’t in the mac store: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-sideloading-of-ios-apps-on-m1-macs https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-...
cyberge99 5y ago
Big Sur already supports iPad apps on M1 natively, out of the box. You just download the iPad version from the App store and it runs automagically. I even did a blog post about it: https://chrisbergeron.com/2021/06/16/Pushover-Desktop-Yes-on-Apple-Silicon-M1-M2/ https://chrisbergeron.com/2021/06/16/Pushover-Desktop-Yes-on...
- d3nj4l 5y ago
  Didn’t apple enable a block against installing IPAs that the developer didn’t authorise to run on macs? https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-sideloading-of-ios-apps-on-m1-macs https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-...
  - gogopuppygogo 5y ago
    I think Apple has adopted a denylist instead of permitlist approach. They let all iPad and iPhone apps run unless the developer puts their app on the denylist.
    - FootballMuse 5y ago
      No, its a whitelist. There are plenty of abandoned apps that haven't been updated in years, which I would like to run on M1, but aren't available.
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        Isn't that because the apps haven't been recompiled for ARM64 though?
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        No iPad has ever run intel, and Apple went 64 bit over half a decade ago.
        5y ago
rubyist5eva 5y ago
Doesn't Big Sur on M1 already do this? I thought that was one of the major selling points?
- q-rews 5y ago
  Not by default, not anymore. The developer has to check a box to allow it. If it’s not allowed, macOS won’t run it.
  - rubyist5eva 5y ago
    That's kinda silly, but I see why Apple would do that. I guess it's a good thing this exists for power users then!
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Just tried with Disney+ and Minecraft. The Minecraft install failed as usual with "The developer did not intend this app to run on this platform." (This is not a server-side check BTW, Apple has it baked into their IPA encryption.) As for Disney+ it just completely failed to decrypt or install.
- irae 5y ago
  Apparently this is intentional since macOS 11.3 I found more in-depth info by following the GitHub link, then YouTube description: https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_App_Store https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_Ap... Looks like a lot of trouble just to use software you payed for, the way you prefer.
  - codetrotter 5y ago
    > Looks like a lot of trouble just to use software you payed for, the way you prefer. I use a lot of proprietary software too, but I don't see any point or reason to demand that I should be able to use the proprietary software the way that I want. If you want freedom to use software the way you prefer, use open source software. I write open source software because I think open source is both important, and because it is beneficial both to myself and others. I run proprietary and open source software side by side. And software that lives forever is the exception not the rule in either case. Whether you pay with your money or your time, almost all software has an end of life at some point. For any number of reasons. Sometimes it's an open source developer that stops maintaining the software and noone has the time nor capacity to pick up the work. Sometimes it's the company behind a proprietary piece of software that goes bankrupt, or the company is acquired and the developers put to work on something else. Or... any number of reasons. About the only thing that you can really do in the end, if you want ultimate control, is to develop the software yourself. But that has a huge cost too, which is the amount of your time that you put into it. Or, we can use the software that others make and admit to ourselves that we are not in control of the future of that software nor how we will be able to use it. And in the end we all have to do so with a lot of software that we use, because no one single person is able to maintain all of the software that they rely on, from the OS to the apps and across devices – it's just way too much code and way too much of everything. And this brings me to the point which is to say, factor this into the consideration when making decisions. Buy a piece of software because it provides value given the current state of things. And be wary of to what extend you allow yourself to be locked into any one app or platform. Don't keep your data on their platform only. Export data to a neutral format and neutral storage medium regularly, so that you have access to it in the future. And if the software makes this impractical, decide which is worth more, the immediate benefit, or the future. Sometimes the answer is immediate benefit, but I think we are susceptible to appreciate immediate benefit even in cases where we should be considering the future more. I use a MacBook Pro M1 and an iPhone because they provide value to me. They provide a platform that is comfortable to use and which suits me. But my files and my life is not tied too strongly to Apple, and my desktop computer runs Linux and my servers run FreeBSD. And if a piece of software does not fulfill what I need it to, I find an alternative piece of software or I find a different way of doing things.
rvz 5y ago
This will not work anymore since Apple blocked sideloading iOS apps natively on M1 Macs as of January 2021. From [0] > The change itself was made to the App Store system that delivers the actual .IPA file and it is all part of Apple’s APIs that manage the DRM (Digital Rights Management) protections of the operating system. Because of this, it’s unlikely that a workaround will present itself in the future. Just look at the issues section, the same errors appear. [1] [0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/19/apple-blocks-m1-mac-iphone-app-side-loading/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/19/apple-blocks-m1-mac-iphone-ap... [1] https://github.com/Letscoder/PlayCover/issues https://github.com/Letscoder/PlayCover/issues
- irae 5y ago
  Looks like there are ways to do it by removing DRM and other shenanigans. I don't own an M1 though, just interesting reading: https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_App_Store https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_Ap...
ronsor 5y ago
Just a note that if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you may be able to extract unencrypted .ipa files to use with this.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Now that’s a tip. Are there any tools for this?
FounderBurr 5y ago
Sent me to some sketch site that sells cracked iOS apps and was also offering to pay cash for my developer account?

122 points by mmastrac 5y ago

This sounds very promising! I imagine that eventually it’ll integrate with some way to find IPAs, and have a simpler way to detect input. Good start

raitom 5y ago

Ah perfect! I really wanted to play Genshin Impact on my M1 MBA!

post_break 5y ago

I hate that I have to ask this, will Apple be able to shut this down?

woleium 5y ago
If a software producer sells or distribues their program outside of the Apple app store then Apple can't stop them, but they could kick them out of the app store. I can't see why they would do that though, as it would be a loose loose situation. As long as it's a separate platform my guess is that they will ignore it?
- post_break 5y ago
  Yeah but I remember there was a hack to get the IPA's to run on M1 and then Apple shut that down somehow.
  - d3nj4l 5y ago
    It wasn’t a hack, you can just install IPAs normally, apple just added a server side check to prevent you from doing that for apps that weren’t in the mac store: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-sideloading-of-ios-apps-on-m1-macs https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-...

cyberge99 5y ago

Big Sur already supports iPad apps on M1 natively, out of the box. You just download the iPad version from the App store and it runs automagically. I even did a blog post about it: https://chrisbergeron.com/2021/06/16/Pushover-Desktop-Yes-on-Apple-Silicon-M1-M2/ https://chrisbergeron.com/2021/06/16/Pushover-Desktop-Yes-on...

d3nj4l 5y ago
Didn’t apple enable a block against installing IPAs that the developer didn’t authorise to run on macs? https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-sideloading-of-ios-apps-on-m1-macs https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/09/apple-again-bars-...
- gogopuppygogo 5y ago
  I think Apple has adopted a denylist instead of permitlist approach. They let all iPad and iPhone apps run unless the developer puts their app on the denylist.
  - FootballMuse 5y ago
    No, its a whitelist. There are plenty of abandoned apps that haven't been updated in years, which I would like to run on M1, but aren't available.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      Isn't that because the apps haven't been recompiled for ARM64 though?
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        No iPad has ever run intel, and Apple went 64 bit over half a decade ago.
        5y ago

rubyist5eva 5y ago

Doesn't Big Sur on M1 already do this? I thought that was one of the major selling points?

q-rews 5y ago
Not by default, not anymore. The developer has to check a box to allow it. If it’s not allowed, macOS won’t run it.
- rubyist5eva 5y ago
  That's kinda silly, but I see why Apple would do that. I guess it's a good thing this exists for power users then!

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Just tried with Disney+ and Minecraft. The Minecraft install failed as usual with "The developer did not intend this app to run on this platform." (This is not a server-side check BTW, Apple has it baked into their IPA encryption.) As for Disney+ it just completely failed to decrypt or install.

irae 5y ago
Apparently this is intentional since macOS 11.3 I found more in-depth info by following the GitHub link, then YouTube description: https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_App_Store https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_Ap... Looks like a lot of trouble just to use software you payed for, the way you prefer.
- codetrotter 5y ago
  > Looks like a lot of trouble just to use software you payed for, the way you prefer. I use a lot of proprietary software too, but I don't see any point or reason to demand that I should be able to use the proprietary software the way that I want. If you want freedom to use software the way you prefer, use open source software. I write open source software because I think open source is both important, and because it is beneficial both to myself and others. I run proprietary and open source software side by side. And software that lives forever is the exception not the rule in either case. Whether you pay with your money or your time, almost all software has an end of life at some point. For any number of reasons. Sometimes it's an open source developer that stops maintaining the software and noone has the time nor capacity to pick up the work. Sometimes it's the company behind a proprietary piece of software that goes bankrupt, or the company is acquired and the developers put to work on something else. Or... any number of reasons. About the only thing that you can really do in the end, if you want ultimate control, is to develop the software yourself. But that has a huge cost too, which is the amount of your time that you put into it. Or, we can use the software that others make and admit to ourselves that we are not in control of the future of that software nor how we will be able to use it. And in the end we all have to do so with a lot of software that we use, because no one single person is able to maintain all of the software that they rely on, from the OS to the apps and across devices – it's just way too much code and way too much of everything. And this brings me to the point which is to say, factor this into the consideration when making decisions. Buy a piece of software because it provides value given the current state of things. And be wary of to what extend you allow yourself to be locked into any one app or platform. Don't keep your data on their platform only. Export data to a neutral format and neutral storage medium regularly, so that you have access to it in the future. And if the software makes this impractical, decide which is worth more, the immediate benefit, or the future. Sometimes the answer is immediate benefit, but I think we are susceptible to appreciate immediate benefit even in cases where we should be considering the future more. I use a MacBook Pro M1 and an iPhone because they provide value to me. They provide a platform that is comfortable to use and which suits me. But my files and my life is not tied too strongly to Apple, and my desktop computer runs Linux and my servers run FreeBSD. And if a piece of software does not fulfill what I need it to, I find an alternative piece of software or I find a different way of doing things.

rvz 5y ago

This will not work anymore since Apple blocked sideloading iOS apps natively on M1 Macs as of January 2021. From [0] > The change itself was made to the App Store system that delivers the actual .IPA file and it is all part of Apple’s APIs that manage the DRM (Digital Rights Management) protections of the operating system. Because of this, it’s unlikely that a workaround will present itself in the future. Just look at the issues section, the same errors appear. [1] [0] https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/19/apple-blocks-m1-mac-iphone-app-side-loading/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/19/apple-blocks-m1-mac-iphone-ap... [1] https://github.com/Letscoder/PlayCover/issues https://github.com/Letscoder/PlayCover/issues

irae 5y ago
Looks like there are ways to do it by removing DRM and other shenanigans. I don't own an M1 though, just interesting reading: https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_App_Store https://www.applegamingwiki.com/wiki/Sideload_apps_not_on_Ap...

ronsor 5y ago

Just a note that if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you may be able to extract unencrypted .ipa files to use with this.

solarkraft 5y ago
Now that’s a tip. Are there any tools for this?

FounderBurr 5y ago

Sent me to some sketch site that sells cracked iOS apps and was also offering to pay cash for my developer account?