RETROARCH on your old iPAD with AltStore | Complete beginner's setup guide

My best "first resto handheld" suggestions:

LINKS:
Altstore install guide:

Here are my written notes:

Timecodes:
0:00 Intro
0:13 Things you will need
0:29 AltStore Setup Guide
4:39 AltStore walkthrough
6:00 Why choose RetroArch over the other emulators?
7:09 RetroArch setup on iPad / iOS
12:28 Where do I load my ROMs?
13:04 Installing bios files
14:08 Making RetroArch easy to use
17:26 How to scan for ROMs
19:55 Replacing deleted cores
20:45 Setting up Retroachievements
21:19 Game testing and discussion
23:29 Who is this for? (best use cases)

My Top 5 Retro Handheld consoles:

Buy my gear:

- STUDIO LIGHT:

Music for videos:

Software:
DaVinci Resolve on PC
LumaFusion on iPad

I am not sponsored by anyone and all views are my own.

RETROARCH on your iPAD with AltStore | Complete beginner's setup guide in 2022

[KomiPai]

Current day update- I believe retroarch shrunk the size for iOS to 295.5 MB, probably to help with sideloading

[aayush_dutt]

Just set up my base model iPad, and RetroArch works phenomenally well. I use it with my PS4 controller, and it's smooth! I have used retroarch with my jailbroken ps4 before, but the convenience and smoothness are way better in iPad. It took some work (setting up altserver, itunes, etc.) but in the end totally worth it. The only fishy part was the iCloud password in AltStore, but I'll trust them for the convenience. Thanks a lot for making this great tutorial!
I am planning to write a blog post soon for this, will also include some tips and my personal settings in it.

[dannyphxntom]

If your iPad still isn’t showing up when choosing a device to install on, I would suggest making a good cable. I tried usb to usb c to my iPad Pro and it didn’t work. I had to use my USBC to USBC cable and THEN the iPad showed up. Great video! Thank you for your help!

[CHONKERBOT]

Thanks for this fantastic step-by-step walkthrough

[grod]

Thank you for helping out I finally managed to get it running, subbed and liked 💯😎

[kjeksklaus]

Awesome video. Will give it a run through tomorrow

[Mmvdd]

I did it with a MacBook Air 13. It didn't worked because when you started using 7zip I was absolutely lost. Didn't know what I have to do on my MacBook 😭 It's been an hour that I'm trying

[denysrocco]

Omg this is awesome!!! Thanks for the tutorial… was considering spending hundreds of dollars on a retro device, but if this works on my iPad then all my problems are solved! 😍🙏🏼

[danielwood]

Absolutely marvelous tutorial, thank you very much! 👍

[stroudnick]

Thanks! This seems to be the only free way to sideload apps (from a few hours of research other sideload/jailbreak methods are broken, please comment if I’m wrong.). Sideloading retroarch is still required to use older iPhones/iPads (I’m running iOS 12.5.7 on an ipad 2 mini) as they are not supported by apple and the developer hasn’t included their iOS 9+ version in the app store for a first party install.

[nigaudavecattitude]

Great video, thank you for this, this is awesome !

[epicglitter]

This is an excellent video - your instructions and explanations are clear and easy to follow! Unfortunately for me, I'm attempting this with a *very* old iPad (iOS 10.3.3), yet to run AltStore, I learned via error messages that the minimum required version is iOS 12.2 or later. Hope that info might be helpful to others, meanwhile I'm gonna keep looking for an alternate route to get RetroArch on this thing. Onward!

[kamaginelenfan]

another way that I do it is using scarlet! that id what i use to nstsll ipas!

[raidengio]

I installed it into my Ipad pro m2 12.9 I did everything step by step, but after adding the app in Altstore, it doesnt appear in "My Apps" but instead on the home screen with no logo and when i touch it to open it it saids "Unable to install retroarch This app cannot be instlled because its integrity could not be verified." any ideas would be very helpful

[garlic]

Great video. My iPad Pro 4th generation 12.9-inch model runs Retroarch just fine, but the device gets hot. Is the next generation iPad with the M1 chip much better with the heat issue?

[RetroSmoo]

RetroArch has gameboy controllers also you just need to change the on screen overlay

[ghalibsalim]

Can we please get an indepth video about core management, I've been trying to install psp and ps2 with no luck

[davidreid]

Thanks again for the great tutorial! Have things basically all worked out, with a question regarding systems that work with iOS.
I have FBNeo, NES, SNES, Megadrive - Genesis, PSP and PS1 all working. I am assuming that GameCube and PS2 are still not working on iOS?
However, could you possibly advise how you got Nintendo 64 working or best core to use, as I can't get it going at all.
Thanks for all your help and great channel!

[derekcurtis]

Going to have to watch and see if I can do it to my iPhone. Wonder if I can use my old Motorola phone to do the setup

[jcvwz]

thanks allot bro I had no clue why it wouldn't download