In early April of this year, Apple made a historic decision for its app store. From that moment on, the firm allowed game emulation applications in the App Store, Since then, many emulators have followed one another and a few days ago one arrived in Spain and the rest of the world: one of Nintendo 3DS, the popular Nintendo console now discontinued.
This is Folium, the first Nintendo 3DS emulation app that can now be downloaded from the App Store. Of course, it is not a free app; In Spain it costs 5.99 euros and does not have any other access model. Basically, Folium is an application to emulate Nintendo 3DS games and run them via split screen on the iPhone.
Although Folium has sneaked into the App Store thanks to the new regulations imposed on the store by Apple, whether or not it is advisable to buy it is relative. Not only because of the legal limbo in which these emulators live, but also because of Nintendo’s own suspicion of these initiatives, which ended with Yuzu, a Nintendo Switch emulator that is no longer available.
The 3DS emulator for iPhone
Folium follows the same system as the vast majority of downloadable emulators for Windows and Android: at no time does the emulator offer games, but it is the user themselves who must add them to the system. On many occasions, users turn to piracy websites to download ROMs of said games.
It can be used on devices running iOS 15 or higher and tablets running iPadOS 15 or higher. It supports a variety of controls including PlayStation and Xbox controllers and also allows you to emulate standard Game Boy and Nintendo DS games. Again, Folium does not have any subscription model or anything similar. It even allows you to use Nintendo controllers, like the JoyCon of the Switch.
Screenshots of the emulator.
Folium
Omicrono
It should be noted that it does not have compatibility with JIT (Just-In-Time) compilation, so emulation performance could be affected on older Apple devices, so the developer recommends using, for example, an iPhone 13 or higher or at least a 10th generation iPad. In addition, it is an app entirely in English.
The fact that Folium can be purchased includes certain flaws. Basically, it starts from the idea of the illegality of downloading content obtained from piracy. On the other hand, there are precedents for emulators that have fallen under legal action by Nintendo, in order to protect their intellectual properties. The most notable case, again, was that of Yuzu.
This leaves Folium in limbo, since it is not known if Nintendo will take legal action or any type of action against Jarrod Norwell, current developer of Folium. To all this we must add that there are already other emulators such as RetroArch, which could add support for emulation of Nintendo 3DS games in the future, making Folium even less recommended.
