iDOS 3 vs MuffinTerm
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
iDOS 3
Experience classic DOS games and applications on your iPhone and iPad. This app emulates a DOS PC, offering modern controls for enhanced playability. It also supports productivity tasks like word processing and programming.
- On-screen keyboard with custom layouts
- Virtual gamepad with customizable bindings
- Trackpad mouse emulation
- MT-32 emulation and MIDI support
- Bluetooth keyboard and gamepad support
- Bluetooth mouse support
Read full descriptionHide full description
Play classic DOS games on your iPhone and iPad! iDOS turns your device right into a powerful DOS gaming PC, with modern game control to make your old favorites as playable as possible. You can also use iDOS for non-gaming purposes, such as word processing, casual programming. Apps in the DOS days are often simpler and surprisingly productive. KEYBOARD iDOS provides a PC compatible on-screen keyboard with carefully designed layouts for different devices and orientations. The keyboard has a sliding control in landscape mode so that you can keep it from covering critical part of the screen. Bluetooth keyboard is fully supported on iOS 14+. GAMEPAD iDOS provides a virtual gamepad with key bindings that are fairly common in DOS games. You can customize the bindings. The DPAD works in 8-axis way. It can also be toggled into a joystick. External bluetooth game controllers are supported. Make sure your game controller is connected (System Settings->Bluetooth). To customize button bindings, go to iDOS in landscape mode, tap on bluetooth icon on the auto-hiding top bar. MOUSE The screen area serves as a trackpad for moving mouse pointer. Tap on the screen for left click. If direct touch is enabled, the mouse pointer will move to where you tap. Hold one finger on the screen, and tap with another finger for right click. On-screen mouse buttons are also provided for your convenience. Bluetooth mouse are fully supported on iOS 14+. AUDIO iDOS supports mt32 emulation, MIDI sound fonts, cuesheet based CDimage with compressed audio tracks (ogg/mp3/flac). SUPPORT - Visit https://litchie.com/dospad for more information - Send email to idos@litchie.com - Follow the developer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/litchiedev - iDOS is open source, report issue on https://github.com/litchie/dospad
MuffinTerm
Relive the classic BBS experience with a modern terminal emulator. Connect to telnet-enabled BBSes worldwide and enjoy pixel-accurate retro display modes and aesthetic effects like simulated modem speed and CRT curvature. Upload and download files with classic protocols.
- Telnet BBS connection
- Authentic retro display modes (CP437, PETSCII, ATASCII)
- Simulated modem speed
- CRT curvature and scanlines
- File transfer (XMODEM, YMODEM, ZMODEM)
- Digital sticky notes for BBSes
Read full descriptionHide full description
MuffinTerm: A terminal crafted for the classic BBS experience. Dive back into the glory days of dial-up bulletin board systems… just, without the dialing up. (Though we’ll always miss that modem sound.) BBSes were once the way that almost anyone “online” got online. The modern Internet might have stolen a bit of the spotlight, but BBSes are still around if you know where to look—and MuffinTerm can take you there. Connect to telnet-enabled BBSes from around the world, with a terminal that’s designed to bring the classic experience to devices of today. (And no more busy signals!) Select from among text modes and terminal hardware of the DOS and home computer era, with pixel-accurate CP437, PETSCII, and ATASCII support for the popular systems of the day, reproduced in exacting detail to help you really feel at home. (All rendered with a custom Metal shader—it is the 21st century, after all.) • MDA with white (P4), green (P31), or amber (P3) phosphor • CGA in 40- or 80-column mode • EGA in 25- or 43-line mode • VGA in 25- or 50-line mode • VIC-II (C64/PETSCII) in NTSC, PAL, or borderless mode • ANTIC (ATASCII) in NTSC, PAL, or borderless mode Fuel your nostalgia further by enabling various aesthetic effects: • Simulated modem speed — from the 110cps teletype crawl of the 1970s to the “blazing fast” 56K of the awesome ’90s. Slow down that ANSI animation to look the way it was originally intended, or just relive the feel of watching the bytes roll in. (Fortunately, without the cross-town toll charges this time around.) • CRT curvature — Turn your flat-screen device into the spitting image of a classic ’tube. • Scan lines — Reject the modernity of your perfect high-DPI display and embrace the scanlines that once reigned supreme. • Warm tube tint — Harken back to an era of dubiously calibrated picture tubes and iffy RF adapters. • VIC-II luma bars — Relive the experience of poorly isolated clock lines (and the resulting visual artifacting). • Overscan borders — View the terminal as it would appear on a typical TV, or flout the factory calibration and show the full borders of the display field. • Select a custom app icon from among several inspired by modems of the BBS era (plus a couple of floppy disks). Some features are functional as well as fun. For example, who hasn’t stuck a sticky note or two to the side of their monitor at some point? Fortunately, the digital era is no bar to this ancient practice. Each BBS in your dialing directory gets its own digital sticky note (pick a color!), plus another that’s shared between them all. Record notes, make reminders, or be naughty and jot down a password or two. (We won’t peek.) Of course, the basics are still all there. Traditional ANSI, PETSCII, and ATASCII terminal emulation give you the proper BBS experience; teletype (TTY) and “raw mode” provide support for special-use systems. Upload and download files using the standard XMODEM, YMODEM, and ZMODEM protocols. Save transcripts of your calls as text or raw data logs. There’s even a session timer in the status line to show you how long you’ve been connected. (Not responsible for flashbacks to long-distance bills from the 1980s.) A comprehensive dialing directory helps you to keep track of your favorite systems. You can also import up-to-date BBS lists from popular online BBS directories. Have multiple devices? Automatically sync your dialing directory and call history between them all—whether iOS, iPadOS, and macOS—via iCloud. And last but not least, it’s free. No ads, no in-app purchases, no weird tracking shenanigans. It’s just you and the soft glow of the pixels calling out to you. It’s time to get back online with MuffinTerm.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: MuffinTerm at Free against iDOS 3's $4.99. MuffinTerm also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.3) and review sentiment (93% vs 69%). iDOS 3's advantage is chart position (#68 vs unranked). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
MuffinTerm is free to download; iDOS 3 costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
MuffinTerm holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 51 and 38 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 69% of iDOS 3's written reviews are positive against 93% of MuffinTerm's.
iDOS 3 ships an update every 6 weeks, MuffinTerm every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and July 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | iDOS 3 | MuffinTerm |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (51 ratings) | 4.9 (38 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 69.3% of reviews | 93.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 51 — better | 38 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #68 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 潮激 李 | Molly Black |
Customer experience
iDOS 3
MuffinTerm
In-app purchases
iDOS 3
No in-app purchases
MuffinTerm
No in-app purchases








