The original Nintendo Gameboy was released in Japan on April 21, 1989. Let that sink in. If it were a person the Gameboy is old enough to have gotten married, had children, develop a well-rounded dad, or mom bod and formed an unhealthy drinking habit. The little console that could went everywhere with us. It was our best friend on long car rides and if you were lucky enough to have a light accessory it accompanied many of us on late night, past-bedtime adventures searching for Pokémon in the Kanto region. Yes, the Gameboy and the many follow up consoles such as the Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance gave us mobile gaming that was unparalleled.

Here in 2019 we are all walking around with smart phones in our pockets that would have been considered supercomputers in 1989. Sure, the graphics offered on these devices far exceed what Nintendo was doing with 8 bits in 1989, but game-play just isn’t the same with the offerings available to us. This is a crime, but don’t fret. Emulation is possible on smartphones and can be done on iOS without jail-breaking your phone. Jail-breaking is a scary proposition that is more than enough to deter even the most technically savvy user. Here is a simple step-by-step guide to installing the GBA4iOS emulator on your iPhone without jail-breaking. You’ll be enjoying retro greatness in five minutes or less!

For this guide I was running iOS 12.2 on an iPhone 6. You mileage may vary on other iPhone models or versions on iOS.

1. On your iPhone, open Safari then navigate to iemulators.com/gba4ios

2. Tap the GBA4iOS 2.1 button then hit “Install”

3. When you receive the pop-up requesting confirmation, tap “Install” again

4. You’ll have a new GBA4iOS icon on your home screen once the installation is complete. If you’re using iOS 12, go to settings-general-device management and click trust ShangHai P&C Information.

5. The emulator itself does not have pre-installed ROMS. You will need to install Dropbox onto your phone if you don’t already have it. Within the settings screen of GBA4iOS there are options to sync up with Dropbox. Once this is done you can download ROMS directly from your phone into a folder generated by GBA4iOS and load them directly via the app.

Here are some screenshots.

I hope this was helpful. Please comment below with any questions or if you just want to share your favorite gameboy games!

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