Update: Nescaline has been pulled from the App Store.  No official word from the developer about the situation, although this was expected.

Emulation is not allowed through Apple's App Store; but today a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator called Nescaline [App Store] has appeared on the App Store.  Released by Jonathan Zdziarski, Nescaline comes with a handful of free games but actually allows you to load up your own NES ROMs (directly violating Apple's strict 'no foreign code' policy).  The download costs $6.99, but more importantly it might be available only temporarily (Apple has been known to remove downloads after further review).

The controls use the multi-touch surface of the iPhone, which makes quick-move games difficult (Battletoads, Mario, and Tetris are a bit more difficult).  Surprisingly, the Legend of Zelda has proven to be quite enjoyable after about five minutes adjusting to the new controls.

Rotating the device will also rotate the allowing for a slightly larger view in portrait mode.  Sound appears to have some problems, and various graphical glitches appear occasionally.  Overall, if you're looking for the first available true emulator on the iPhone (including the ability to load ROMs) this is it.  Discuss this in the forum.

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As many of you know, MacScene v9.0 has crashed.  Some sort of technical error with our hosting service has caused the database to become corrupted, and our frequent requests for a weekly backup (a service we pay for) have gone unfulfilled.  Most notably the database table containing all of the posts made over the past two years of MacScene v9.0 is lost.  This put us in a bit of a jam.

 I have not been active with MacScene since I developed the latest incarnation of site a number of years ago, however my company (which spawned from Emuscene) has continued doing web development.  In fact most of the people I have worked with and who have done work for me were members of the MacScene community.  This new site is built on the software my company uses to rapidly develop social networking sites, and it's based (at least in part) on the work done on MacScene.  It seemed only fitting that we transfer MacScene to a new server and use this software to create a new site.

If you were posting news on the previous incarnation of MacScene, or if you're interested in learning how to post on our new system; let me know. 

There are a lot of new features in this site, and a lot of things that have been disabled for now.  I have to admit my own ignorance in how the MacScene community has grown over the years, and I hope that this site will (sooner rather than later) fulfill the needs of the community and help it grow.  But I would like to hear feedback from the community.  What should the focus be?  Should we stay devoted solely to emulation on the Mac; or have we continued to evolve to simply be a video game-centric group of Mac users?  Do we need photo and video sharing?  Is the live chat (try setting up an account and logging in) useful or creepy?  Should we have friend/buddy lists?  I want to hear what you want before I continue developing any aspects of the site.

Read more to find a breakdown of some of the new features included initially.