The Apple App Store might be a walled garden most of the times, but some applications which we thought would be never seen there do actually end up being approved by Apple. While we may never find out how these got approved in the first place, that is not our area of concern today.

Late last night, a new App known as iDOS made its debut in the App Store. It does precisely what you thought it would do! Run DOS on your iPad! Now, before you rush to download it, let us inform you that it has already been pulled out. 

This app is a DOSbox based open source DOS emulator, which offers support for keyboard, mouse and even multiple screen modes. iDos works equally well on the 4th iPod Touch 4G at 960*640 resolution! It had a brief stay at the App Store before being officially booted out. The reason for the removal is still not clear.

In the time which the app was available, some lucky users who managed to download it, have been testing out various retro DOS games and applications on it. The things you could do with this app is mind blowing! A user for example, has even managed to successfully install Windows 3.0 on his iPad using this app. Others in the meantime have run Space Quest, Sierra Adventure games and even Warcraft 2 on their iOS based gadgets using iDOS. 

You can also checkout the video of Space Quest running on the iPhone:

That said, Emulator apps has had a history of being booted out of the App Store in the past. Not long ago, the Commodore64 emulator too suffered the same fate. It was however reinstated after the developer made it "compatible" with the terms of the relaxed App Store terms and conditions. 

Even though Apple has now pulled the app, there is hope for folks who have jailbroken their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Folks at Litchie have posted instructions on how to install the DosPad – the jailbreak version of the app called on the iPad. 

Were you one of the lucky ones to download iDos before it was removed? Let us know what you think of the DOS emulator in the comments below.