Q&A with Manomio, Commodore 64 App Developer

Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted before the app was recently pulled for apparently leaving the BASIC interpreter in secretly after all – we’ll let you know when it goes back on sale.

Recently, Manomio made a huge splash on the App Store by way of getting one of the first, if not THE first, emulators available on the App Store, their Commodore 64 emulator. Featuring officially licensed games, the app underwent a long and arduous review process until it recently got approved and will soon be made available for the iPhone and iPod touch-owning public to consume. Manomio’s Brian Lyscarz was gracious enough to answer some questions for us regarding Commodore 64 for iPhone.

TPG: What, exactly, was the app initially rejected for?

Brian: it was rejected on the 3.3.2 in the developer agreement, without any further explanation.

“3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any
means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other
frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in
an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-
in interpreter(s).”

TPG: How were you able to get the app finally approved by Apple?

Brian: It has been a long fight with several resubmits to apple, until we finally got in contact by email to top management at apple US. A few days after that the responsible person within Apple, for the AppStore called me and we talked about what we´ll have to change in order to get the app approved. What was needed for Apple to accept it was to remove basic.

TPG: Can you go into what you needed to remove in order to get the app approved?

Brian: Yep, we agreed with Apple that we had to hide the basic and all wording like “emulator” in app and descriptions.

TPG: Do you think that the approval of Commodore 64 finally is a major shift in Apple’s approval process, or just a one-time occurrence based on the particulars of your C64 app?

Brian: Yes and no, I think Apple is aware of the problem they have, but at the same time a company that need and wants control to ensure some level of quality on the products they provide. But let´s see what happens wedensday, we might see a new agreement with this issue addressed.

TPG: The ability to use in-app purchases to download new games is a cool feature, what are some upcoming titles that you plan to add to the app?

Brian: actually we´re planning on an even cooler way to buy titles – an “out-of-app-purchase” where you´ll buy a new app with 1-6 games in it, install these games into you C64 and then delete the gamepack again as they´ll stay in C64. About the games I cant tell you much, but I can promise that you wont be disapointed! :)

A million thanks to Brian Lyscarz for speaking with me, and expect a review of Commodore 64 for iPhone soon.