iGBA Downloads & RevenueiGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator · App Store
Not in any tracked top chart right now.
Updated 8 Nov 2026 · rankings refresh through the day
DeveloperMattia La Spina
CategoryEntertainment
PriceFree
Released
Rating★ 4.8 (110)
Version2.17.0
Age rating9+
First seen by us
25 Sep 2026
25 Sep 2026Installs (est.)500k+ worldwide
iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator update history & changes
Last change · 10 events since 13 Apr 2024Full timeline ↓📦Updated to version 2.17.0📈Dropped out of every chart we track📈Entered the top 100📦Updated to version 2.16.0🆕First spotted by AppInsider🆕Released on the App Store
Full timeline · 10 events
- 📦iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator updated to version 2.17.0Most of this update came from your reviews, your emails and the Discord. Thank you for writing them.
LINK CABLE
• GB and GBC link cable: both consoles now run on the same emulated clock, so a session gives exactly the same result on both devices. Battle and trade rooms no longer freeze or fall out of sync.
• GBA link cable over the internet is steadier: two timing problems that could break the very first transfer are fixed.
• Play over the internet between iPhone and Android. Both players need the latest version of the app.
• Two copies of the same game are recognised even when the files have different names.
• Sharing your save sends the latest one, not an older copy.
• Nearby play: two devices that invite each other at the same moment now connect.
• If the other phone goes silent, the session ends after 30 seconds and your save is restored, instead of waiting forever.
PATCHES
• Apply .ips, .ups and .bps patches from "Add Game" or "Open in iGBA". Pick a game from your library and iGBA writes a new copy; the original is never touched.
• UPS and BPS patches check that they match your copy of the game and tell you if they were made for another revision.
CONTROLLERS
• On-screen controls hide when a controller is connected, and now there is a switch to keep them visible: Settings › Controls › External controller.
• The left stick moves left and right again on controllers where it only moved up and down. Diagonals work too.
GRAPHICS
• The game image is now drawn with native Metal: steadier and more stable frame pacing.
• New optional performance overlay (Settings › Performance, off by default): screen and emulation frame rate, CPU and frame cost while you play.
APPLE WATCH
• The buttons can be moved: tap the arrows icon in the game bar and drag the d-pad, A/B, SELECT/START, L and R. GBA and GB/GBC layouts are saved separately.
• L, R and the d-pad accept touches slightly outside their drawing.
• Sound no longer stays off after the watch screen goes to sleep the first time.
ALSO
• Smaller fixes and translation improvements.… more - 📈iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator dropped out of every chart we trackLast seen 15 Oct
- 📈iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator entered the top 100Top Grossing · Entertainment · RU
- 📈iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator charting in a new countryRussia
- 📦iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator updated to version 2.16.0Most of this update came from your reviews and the Discord. Thank you.
YOUR OWN COVERS
• Give every game its box art: touch and hold a game, choose Cover, and pick a picture from Photos or Files.
• Games with a cover get a square card in the grid. Remove it any time to go back to the last screenshot.
• iGBA never downloads covers, so the picture is always yours.
FIXES
• Some fan-translated games restarted right after catching a creature. They now carry on to the next screen.… more - 📈iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator charting in a new countrySpain
- 📦iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator updated to version 2.14.0Quasi tutto questo aggiornamento nasce dalle vostre recensioni e dalle vostre email. Grazie di averle scritte.
SALVATAGGI
• Giochi che non riuscivano a salvare adesso salvano. Ad alcune cartucce veniva assegnato un tipo di memoria di salvataggio che non era il loro, così il gioco scriveva dove non ascoltava nessuno e dava errore ogni volta, su qualsiasi dispositivo.
• Non si blocca più quando un RPG lungo salva vicino al finale. Una cartuccia da 128K girava come se fosse da 64K, e gli ultimi settori finivano sopra il salvataggio stesso.
• Impostazioni › Salvataggi ha un pannello nuovo che legge il tuo file di salvataggio e ti dice, in parole semplici, che cosa ha trovato.
• Importa i salvataggi da un altro emulatore una cartella intera alla volta, invece che un gioco per volta.
SCAMBI TRA SALVATAGGI
• Quello che scambi ora viene registrato nell'indice del gioco, come quando si scambia col cavo.
• E non può più sparire. L'altro gioco non era in esecuzione, quindi la volta dopo che lo aprivi un salvataggio automatico vecchio rimetteva la squadra di prima e scriveva sopra lo scambio.
CONTROLLI
• L'avanzamento rapido ha un suo pulsante sullo schermo. C'era un'impostazione per la velocità di una cosa che si poteva avviare solo con un controller Bluetooth.
• Va a 2x, 3x o 4x. Lo sblocco prometteva 4x e si fermava a 3x.
• La croce direzionale ha lo stesso bordo di tutti gli altri pulsanti, dello stesso spessore ovunque, e prende bene i tuoi colori.
• Le Impostazioni complete si aprono dal menu di pausa.
• Colore, dimensione e trasparenza stanno in un posto solo invece che in due.
APPLE WATCH
• I giochi GBA hanno l'audio sull'orologio. Non l'avevano mai avuto.
• Su un orologio da 40 mm la fila in basso non esce più dallo schermo, L e R sono abbastanza grandi da premere, e ogni pulsante mostra quando lo premi.
TRUCCHI
• Il secondo codice di un elenco viene salvato come codice, non come dato di quello sopra.
• I codici Game Boy già salvati sul telefono si riparano da soli.
INOLTRE
• Le ROM non appaiono più bianche nell'app File.
• Su un iPhone pieghevole L e R stanno fuori dalla piega e l'immagine non finisce sotto l'orologio.
• «Save states» e «battery save» erano tradotti male in 33 lingue: gli stati salvati erano diventati stati politici, e il salvataggio di partita il risparmio energetico del telefono.
• Dopo aver guardato una pubblicità durante il gioco, lo schermo non resta più nero. Il gioco continuava sotto; semplicemente non si vedeva.
• La copia precedente del salvataggio automatico più recente conserva la sua immagine.… more - 🆕iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator first spotted by AppInsider#75 in Top Free · Entertainment · Italy
- 📦iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator version 2.13.0Most of this update came from your reviews. Thank you for writing them.
CHEATS
• Codes the list offered and the emulator quietly threw away now work. Game Genie codes were reaching the core labelled as GameShark, and codes with a blank where a number goes are gone from the list.
• Cheats that were "all over the place" were written for a different revision of the ROM. iGBA now reads your ROM's revision and warns you when the codes were made for another one.
• When a code cannot be applied, it says so instead of showing a checkmark and doing nothing.
CONTROLS
• Buttons land exactly where you put them. The editor, the preview and the game finally agree.
• Color, size, transparency and position, all on one page.
• D-pad, d-pad with diagonals or joystick, each with a tester right below it.
• 8 skins, a color per button, light and dark theme, and the d-pad takes color too.
LINK CABLE
• The link cable between two devices no longer freezes both players on the waiting screen, and it now runs at full speed.
• Trading between two different games on one device no longer writes into the wrong part of the save.
APPLE WATCH
• Your library shows up, and you can play with the iPhone locked.
• The Digital Crown can press A and B.
ALSO
• Back up saves, save states, settings and layouts to a single file.
• Game volume apart from your phone's: turn the game music down, keep the sound effects, play your own.
• GB Palette applies while you are playing, and the palette names no longer lie.
• Pro is no longer lost when you have no signal.
• 33 languages, up from 10.… more - 🆕iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator released on the App Store
Collected from the stores by AppInsider since we first spotted the app. Dates are when we saw each change.
Rating
4.8 ★
110 ratings
Measured
New ratings a week
5.9
App Store, 4-week average
Measured
iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator on the App Store
App details
App ID
6482993626
Publisher
Mattia La Spina
On the store since
Apr 2024
2 years on the store
Minimum OS
iOS 15.0+
iPhone 6s and later
Devices
iPhone · iPad · Watch
Universal purchase
Content rating
9+
2 content notes below
Languages
33
AR CA HR CS DA NL EN FI FR DE EL HE …
Size
76 MB
Also listed in
Developer Tools
Content notesInfrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude HumourInfrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator downloads
Worldwide, per day, and installs to date. The band is open; the exact number is free with an account.
How this is calculated
Apple publishes no download counts. App Store downloads come from chart positions and daily rating growth per country, calibrated on Google Play install counts; lifetime installs from ratings worldwide × installs per rating. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
Active users
All platforms, worldwide. Free with an account.
Stickiness (DAU / MAU)
how many monthly users open it on a given day
How this is calculated
Monthly users come from lifetime installs across every store, fitted on monthly active user figures companies publish; daily users = monthly × the typical daily/monthly ratio for the category. Confidence is the chance the real number is within half to double ours.
In-app revenue
Worldwide, what users spend in iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator before Apple and Google take their fee.
How this is calculated
Not on any Top Grossing chart: monthly active users × spend per user for its category, measured on the charted apps nearest the bottom of the charts.
Business model: Subscription-led
How iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator makes money: subscriptions, one-off purchases and ads.
SubscriptionsIn-app purchasesAds · 1 ad networks
Subscriptions
/mo
of revenue
Ads
/mo
of revenue
Top in-app purchases · App Store US, most popular first
| 1 | iGBA PRO Subscription subscription | |
| 2 | iGBA PRO Yearly Subscription subscription | |
| 3 | iGBA PRO Lifetime subscription |
Where it ranks now
Every top chart it appears in across 30 countries.
| Country | Charts | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Not charting right now. | ||
Ratings
App Store, worldwide.
Rating
4.8 ★
110 ratings
Measured
Ratings
110
Measured
Review momentum
ⓘ How we measure thisNew ratings a week
5.9
4-week average
Lifetime rating
4.4★
recent stars not readable yet: new ratings are a tiny share of the total
Review momentum
64/100
faster than 73% of Entertainment apps
New ratings by country (2)
| Country | New ratings a week | Share | Last 2 weeks vs the 2 before |
|---|---|---|---|
 Spain | 3 | 51% | – |
| Italy | 2.9 | 49% | – |
App Store ratings in the countries we track, 4-week average.
Review momentum (0-100) blends how fast the app collects ratings compared with other apps in its category (60%), whether that pace is speeding up (25%) and what recent raters give it (15%; recent stars well below lifetime pull it down). Ratings counts are read daily. A jump usually means a launch, a feature, ads or a new review prompt.
About iGBA: GBA & GBC Retro Emulator
iGBA runs your own .gba, .gbc and .gb files on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. No account, no cloud, nothing to sign up for: copy a file in and play.
I build iGBA on my own, and most of what is in it came from people writing reviews and telling me what was broken.
SUPPORTED SYSTEMS
- Game Boy
- Game Boy Color
- Game Boy Advance
WHAT YOU GET
- Built for iPhone Duo: it uses the whole unfolded display and keeps playing when you fold it.
- Save states anywhere, alongside the game's own save.
- Rewind when you fall in the pit, and turbo up to 3x for the grinding.
- Cheats: thousands of codes built in, or paste your own. GameShark, Game Genie, Code Breaker and Action Replay formats.
- Link cable between two devices over the network, or between two different games on the same one.
- On-screen buttons you can move, resize, recolor and hide. 8 skins, a color per button, light and dark theme.
- Pick a d-pad, a d-pad with diagonals, or a joystick, and try it before you play.
- MFi and Bluetooth controllers, and a keyboard on iPad.
- Game volume apart from your phone's, so you can put your own music over it.
- Screen filters, frame skip, full screen, and color palettes for monochrome games.
- Apple Watch: your library on your wrist and the Digital Crown as buttons.
- Back up saves, save states, settings and layouts to a single file.
- Play time, favourites, filters and file info in the library.
- Works offline. Your game files stay on your device and are never uploaded.
- 33 languages.
ADS AND PRO
iGBA is free, and the ads are what pay for it, so it can stay free for the people who cannot pay. Pro turns them off for good. If you would rather not pay, watching an ad now and then helps just as much.
iGBA is not affiliated with Nintendo in any way. All related game console names are trademarks of Nintendo Co. Ltd. and are mentioned here for description purposes only.
Privacy Policy: https://mattials.com/privacy/
Terms & Conditions: https://mattials.com/terms/
I build iGBA on my own, and most of what is in it came from people writing reviews and telling me what was broken.
SUPPORTED SYSTEMS
- Game Boy
- Game Boy Color
- Game Boy Advance
WHAT YOU GET
- Built for iPhone Duo: it uses the whole unfolded display and keeps playing when you fold it.
- Save states anywhere, alongside the game's own save.
- Rewind when you fall in the pit, and turbo up to 3x for the grinding.
- Cheats: thousands of codes built in, or paste your own. GameShark, Game Genie, Code Breaker and Action Replay formats.
- Link cable between two devices over the network, or between two different games on the same one.
- On-screen buttons you can move, resize, recolor and hide. 8 skins, a color per button, light and dark theme.
- Pick a d-pad, a d-pad with diagonals, or a joystick, and try it before you play.
- MFi and Bluetooth controllers, and a keyboard on iPad.
- Game volume apart from your phone's, so you can put your own music over it.
- Screen filters, frame skip, full screen, and color palettes for monochrome games.
- Apple Watch: your library on your wrist and the Digital Crown as buttons.
- Back up saves, save states, settings and layouts to a single file.
- Play time, favourites, filters and file info in the library.
- Works offline. Your game files stay on your device and are never uploaded.
- 33 languages.
ADS AND PRO
iGBA is free, and the ads are what pay for it, so it can stay free for the people who cannot pay. Pro turns them off for good. If you would rather not pay, watching an ad now and then helps just as much.
iGBA is not affiliated with Nintendo in any way. All related game console names are trademarks of Nintendo Co. Ltd. and are mentioned here for description purposes only.
Privacy Policy: https://mattials.com/privacy/
Terms & Conditions: https://mattials.com/terms/
Latest updates
2.17.0
Most of this update came from your reviews, your emails and the Discord. Thank you for writing them.
LINK CABLE
• GB and GBC link cable: both consoles now run on the same emulated clock, so a session gives exactly the same result on both devices. Battle and trade rooms no longer freeze or fall out of sync.
• GBA link cable over the internet is steadier: two timing problems that could break the very first transfer are fixed.
• Play over the internet between iPhone and Android. Both players need the latest version of the app.
• Two copies of the same game are recognised even when the files have different names.
• Sharing your save sends the latest one, not an older copy.
• Nearby play: two devices that invite each other at the same moment now connect.
• If the other phone goes silent, the session ends after 30 seconds and your save is restored, instead of waiting forever.
PATCHES
• Apply .ips, .ups and .bps patches from "Add Game" or "Open in iGBA". Pick a game from your library and iGBA writes a new copy; the original is never touched.
• UPS and BPS patches check that they match your copy of the game and tell you if they were made for another revision.
CONTROLLERS
• On-screen controls hide when a controller is connected, and now there is a switch to keep them visible: Settings › Controls › External controller.
• The left stick moves left and right again on controllers where it only moved up and down. Diagonals work too.
GRAPHICS
• The game image is now drawn with native Metal: steadier and more stable frame pacing.
• New optional performance overlay (Settings › Performance, off by default): screen and emulation frame rate, CPU and frame cost while you play.
APPLE WATCH
• The buttons can be moved: tap the arrows icon in the game bar and drag the d-pad, A/B, SELECT/START, L and R. GBA and GB/GBC layouts are saved separately.
• L, R and the d-pad accept touches slightly outside their drawing.
• Sound no longer stays off after the watch screen goes to sleep the first time.
ALSO
• Smaller fixes and translation improvements.
2.16.0
Most of this update came from your reviews and the Discord. Thank you.
YOUR OWN COVERS
• Give every game its box art: touch and hold a game, choose Cover, and pick a picture from Photos or Files.
• Games with a cover get a square card in the grid. Remove it any time to go back to the last screenshot.
• iGBA never downloads covers, so the picture is always yours.
FIXES
• Some fan-translated games restarted right after catching a creature. They now carry on to the next screen.
2.14.0
Quasi tutto questo aggiornamento nasce dalle vostre recensioni e dalle vostre email. Grazie di averle scritte.
SALVATAGGI
• Giochi che non riuscivano a salvare adesso salvano. Ad alcune cartucce veniva assegnato un tipo di memoria di salvataggio che non era il loro, così il gioco scriveva dove non ascoltava nessuno e dava errore ogni volta, su qualsiasi dispositivo.
• Non si blocca più quando un RPG lungo salva vicino al finale. Una cartuccia da 128K girava come se fosse da 64K, e gli ultimi settori finivano sopra il salvataggio stesso.
• Impostazioni › Salvataggi ha un pannello nuovo che legge il tuo file di salvataggio e ti dice, in parole semplici, che cosa ha trovato.
• Importa i salvataggi da un altro emulatore una cartella intera alla volta, invece che un gioco per volta.
SCAMBI TRA SALVATAGGI
• Quello che scambi ora viene registrato nell'indice del gioco, come quando si scambia col cavo.
• E non può più sparire. L'altro gioco non era in esecuzione, quindi la volta dopo che lo aprivi un salvataggio automatico vecchio rimetteva la squadra di prima e scriveva sopra lo scambio.
CONTROLLI
• L'avanzamento rapido ha un suo pulsante sullo schermo. C'era un'impostazione per la velocità di una cosa che si poteva avviare solo con un controller Bluetooth.
• Va a 2x, 3x o 4x. Lo sblocco prometteva 4x e si fermava a 3x.
• La croce direzionale ha lo stesso bordo di tutti gli altri pulsanti, dello stesso spessore ovunque, e prende bene i tuoi colori.
• Le Impostazioni complete si aprono dal menu di pausa.
• Colore, dimensione e trasparenza stanno in un posto solo invece che in due.
APPLE WATCH
• I giochi GBA hanno l'audio sull'orologio. Non l'avevano mai avuto.
• Su un orologio da 40 mm la fila in basso non esce più dallo schermo, L e R sono abbastanza grandi da premere, e ogni pulsante mostra quando lo premi.
TRUCCHI
• Il secondo codice di un elenco viene salvato come codice, non come dato di quello sopra.
• I codici Game Boy già salvati sul telefono si riparano da soli.
INOLTRE
• Le ROM non appaiono più bianche nell'app File.
• Su un iPhone pieghevole L e R stanno fuori dalla piega e l'immagine non finisce sotto l'orologio.
• «Save states» e «battery save» erano tradotti male in 33 lingue: gli stati salvati erano diventati stati politici, e il salvataggio di partita il risparmio energetico del telefono.
• Dopo aver guardato una pubblicità durante il gioco, lo schermo non resta più nero. Il gioco continuava sotto; semplicemente non si vedeva.
• La copia precedente del salvataggio automatico più recente conserva la sua immagine.
