Image from MacRumors
I wouldn't anticipate this lasting long, unless we're seeing a shift in Apple's strict "no foreign executable code" policy which has been the bane of iOS users wanting to play some classic games on their device. But a MAME emulator called iMAME has snuck into the App Store and shows some great promise. It ships with a handful of classic games already installed, but using a file uploading utility for the iPhone you can load up any MAME ROMs you like (search iDOS if you need some help, same process). We've seen a number of emulators find their way into the App Store over the years and each one disappears shortly afterwards, so get it while you can.
Update: iMAME has been pulled from the App Store.
Here is the original article from MacRumors:
TouchArcade has spotted the appearance of a free MAME game emulator on the App Store called iMAME. MAME is a popular arcade machine emulator that will run thousands of arcade games if you have the original ROMs.
iMAME ships with nine "less than stellar" ROMs to play, but apparently can load arbitrary ROMs using a 3rd party utility such as iExplorer without jailbreaking:
It seems that the same method used to get games into iDOS also works in iMAME. Twitter user @mattlukens mentions, "Yep, add a .zip rom to the Docs folder through PhoneView and it works perfect! Just tried Crime Fighters!" He also provided a screenshot. The clock is really ticking now on Apple pulling this down
Apple has had a bit of a spotty history with emulators on the App Store. While a number of individual emulators do exist on the App Store, Apple has been more restrictive about these open emulators, presumably due to potential legal issues. For example, a fullDOS/Windows 3.0 emulator appeared in the App Store at one point but was quickly pulled by Apple.
iMAME is currently available as a free Universal application on the App Store.