Run full iOS 16.5 firmware on Android Devices
github.com
github.com
But it's quite impressive that it works on QEMU, POCO X5 Pro 5G and some Xiaomi devices too.
Website is here: https://hackios-web.vercel.app/en
Source Code: https://github.com/oosexgang/hackios-xnu-kernel
TrungNguyen1909's reverse engineering of A13 bionic booted up modern iOS on non apple hardware for the first time. This opened up a viable path to Apple Silicon hackintoshes as well (eventually), and is just inspiring work. That itself was supported by by the work of Martijn de Vos (devos50) on emulating the 1st-gen iPod Touch, winocm on the early 2010s iEmu project for the Apple A4, and the alephsecurity team on the xnu-qemu-arm64 project for virtualizing 64-bit XNU kernels.
I think it continues as Chefkiss inferno and they seem to be close to getting recent iOS to work [3]. I suppose they could make rapid progress with AI now.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBeIW2PDFVk&t=286s
>App Store content and Apple ID sign-in (no Secure Enclave; FairPlay daemon exits)
That seems like a huge roadblock, even if were able to resolve all the driver/OS issues.
Given you own the OS, that's not an issue. You can make it pre-jailbroken and load whatever third party app store if you want. The bigger issue is that no app store = no "normie" apps like uber or google maps. I suspect most of the stock apps won't work either because they enforce device attestation on the backend endpoints, so it'll be miserable to use. Note in the maps screenshot, there's nothing behind the modal. It's just blank, suggesting it can't load the map tiles. You'd be better off using an android skinned as ios (possibly vibedcoded) than using this mess.
>Does not work (yet)
>- Cellular, Bluetooth
>- Charging under our kernel (the phone only discharges)
What I mean by that is if someone can create a near perfect replica with all the software keys needed and then clone a known serial number or range of serial numbers, when it comes to apple pushing out an OS update, how are they to know which the real devices are and which aren't?
Just like you can still buy fakes rolexes etc lmao.
Even if you disclose to the buyer that it's counterfeit, it's _still_ illegal. You can't just use someone else's name, logo, or protected designs without authorization.
In fact, it's so severe, you can face >= 10 yrs in Federal PMIA prison and owe fines up to $2M — just for the first offense.
I think you would need to hack and emulate the whole security enclave, which contains quite a bit of factory-provisioned data IIRC.
6 months after I bough mine (a 965 FR, top of the line, most recent model at the time), they released the new model 970 with new softwares features they won't port to mine...
I'm not suggesting I like Windows or anything nonsensical like that, but I'm just suggesting that their hardware is much better than their software.
And before that, PowerMacs and PowerBooks.
Then Nvidia got into a feud over Samsung, Qualcomm, and indirectly Apple via PowerVR making their own GPUs so Apple ragequit and gave them the finger, culminating in refusing to sign third-party Nvidia drivers.
I wish someone would take out a license with Arm and build a computer using Linux creating a user-friendly computer. After all, it’s been 35 years.
Who? Arm can barely sell licenses to their biggest customers. Do you expect smaller businesses to pay for the ISA license, or core IP?
For all the success this strategy found in the mobile market, it's just as fruitless for server\PC as it was in the 1990s.
This is a very hot take. I think you'll find quite a lot of people are unhappy with the state of the two OSes, while still regarding the hardware as best-in-class
It certainly is taking a whole bunch of people a lot of time to produce something better and I’m sorry, Windows and Microsoft aren’t it in the mid 80s in the early 90s there were many in some cases, better solutions by several vertical computer companies not saying all of them were better, but you can’t beat designing the operating system and the hardware under one roof again parasitically hanging off someone else’s hardware equals a bad, poorly performing solution.
MacOS is a practically enforced part of Mac. I'd love to get rid of it because it's not even good.
In relation to the rest of your comment: Yes, MacOS and iOS sucks. All the alternatives suck twice as bad. Which is why somebody might want to upgrade their phone to iOS.
The desirable outcome for most people doesn’t seem to be the ability to run android on an iPhone, let’s put it that way.
This is probably a commercial Android distro like Samsung's or Google's, filled with OEM crapware. Pure Android is far better than that and is free (freedom to install apps, inspect the source code, etc.) It's basically a Linux distro for smart phones.
It doesn’t really matter to me if there’s some other specific version of Android that fixes some issues if I install it. As a user that’s not something I care about.
It's odd because, as someone who daily drives a Pixel with GrapheneOS and also owns an iPhone, my experience is the opposite. You could not pay be to go back to a device controlled by a corporation, and on which I am not allowed to run programs without Apple's blessing. The UI is largely a matter of taste, by now all mobile operating systems have converged to a broadly identical design and similar gestures etc.
Both are inconsistent mess.
Not having the ugly frosted glass thing is a very big plus.
The next most desirable outcome is to be able to run another solid/secure/up-to-date mobile OS on them, and it gets more relatively desirable once iOS stops supporting the device.
What a time to be alive!
I wonder if it is here because Claude would deploy safeguards and not proceed with the project otherwise.
What does this? You can only 'use the device' for x seconds before ..shutting down?
I have yet to see a “full iOS reskin of Android” that actually fools anyone with at least one working eye and a normal amount of common sense. These “reskins” are just slightly fancier launchers and they in no conceivable way provide an experience anywhere near close to actual iOS.
Not to detract from how awesome this is, just curious.
Agents are going to move this project into acceptable usability and performance in 6-12 months, across a broad set of Android phones. You're going to see people loading iOS on $299 phones, with grey zone marketplaces for app packages (like Android has had for ever).
Hackintosh was a small hobbyist community. Phones will be 100x that. There's going to be very little money in it, but I'll be surprised if this doesn't explode.
Reason: Android is a OS designed to run on as much hardware as possible, iOS is designed to support only a VERY limited set of components, and is increasingly wrapped into a per-component security architecture.
And I'm saying that it's not trivial to run an OS on any hardware. Android is designed for this and well-documented, which makes it look easier. iOS is neither of those.
Q: Do the iServices like iCloud, App Store, etc work? A: No, at least not yet. They possibly require something iOS refers to as the “Legacy FairPlay Key Descrambler” AES (hardware) command.
Extremely subtle hint. Well played.
> Does not work (yet)
>
> Charging under our kernel (the phone only discharges)Formally verified bootloaders and Secure Boot will make this all but impossible without hardware mods that do voltage glitching. It took 8 years for the checkm8 and usbliter8 exploits to be found, and I think that especially Apple has invested so much money, time and resources into securing their boot chain that the "best" thing we can hope for is a tethered jailbreak allowing a boot into another kernel.
If I had to venture a guess it would be that this is the last stand for hackers that are able to root all kinds of older devices, but companies like Apple will shell out the money to prevent this for their next-gen devices.
It's likely that low-cost device makers will not do that, so maybe rooting will still persist for cheap stuff.
But "Open Source" is a description of the licensing terms, and it ain't gonna be that. Apple will sue hosters into oblivion. It will only be available on pirate sites.
We already have nearly a dozen of Adobe and Autodesk knock off apps.
A clone of autodesk may be open source however.
It's going to be hilarious.
Personally speaking as someone who's had to use both platforms in varying capacities in the past decade I do not find myself fond of Android, particularly modern Android. When I booted up an old Android 9 device a few months back I was struck with how much more appeal that version held compared to its contemporary counterpart.
You can’t write something like that and then follow up with
> what the people (me) want is the opposite, Android running on Apple hardware :)
Fair point iPads have decent specs for the price, but if you already have an Android tablet, it would be nice to not have to buy an extra device.
Have you checked out the hackintosh community lately? They have a near fully functional port to Snapdragon now.
A nice clean UI, and a very consistent and clean visual hierarchy.
But this is still a big step for research purposes.
then you could install .ipa and get apps without the app store
Isn't have a cell phone that does not work on a cellular network kind of like having a watch that does not tell time?
I don't think there is a lot of people who actually clone the repos and try the stuff.
Microsoft, Google, Oracle, etc, just invested all their money into a technology that will make their software worthless. As Ronald McDonald once said, I’m lovin’ it.
- Optimized and ultra-hardened Office for macros and features? Pay.
- CUDA optimized PS -with inline assembly maybe even from Rust- and more, 24/7 support with a huge Adobe asset pack to start with? Pay.
The are similar tools with the same philosophy on reimplementation and design. Oh, and written in Rust too. So the MIT tools are pretty much ahead.
They can be commanded from either an script done from an user (similar to AppleScript or VBA but for anything) or an MCP.
I am "disappointed". no AI OS in the boot sector? It should be taking That log and AFKing the next fix man. Also "sorely missing" is a motorized rig controlling any hardkey presses for reboot and volume etc, because its not real AFK without that.
CmmonCommon 2026!
Those people had 4 years to reverse-engineer iOS 16 on their own terms. I don't think there was any overwhelming technical motivation to spend time on a project like this.
You chase the dragon by figuring out the problems over potentially a long period of time.
They are figuring out the problems and releasing various levels of POCs in a fraction of the time. It may not all be correct, but with how quick it is, there is plenty of time for refactoring if necessary.