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Posted by aghuang 16 hours ago

Run full iOS 16.5 firmware on Android Devices(github.com)
https://hackios-web.vercel.app/en
415 points | 142 comments
aghuang 15 hours ago|
I found the website to be quite nauseating to look at, so I decided to use the GitHub link instead.

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

Wowfunhappy 12 hours ago||
Is this not your work? If you didn't make it, you should email hn@ycombinator.com so the mods can remove Show HN from the title. This is a great submission, just not a Show HN.
dang 9 hours ago||
Ok, we've un-show-hn'd it and will leave the submission otherwise intact.
jeswin 6 hours ago|||
This is incredible work. Thanks for letting us know. The really cool thing about this is that it actually works on phones.

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

[2]: https://github.com/TrungNguyen1909/qemu-t8030

[3] https://github.com/ChefKissInc/Inferno

semolino 15 hours ago|||
Are those tubal ligation scars on the mascot?
dpacmittal 15 hours ago|||
I'm surprised Camera works. Even postmarketOS has difficulty with camera on most devices.
simlevesque 15 hours ago||
Thank you.
sanid 15 hours ago||
This is going to be fun. There are already replica phones for the flagship phones that are running a shitty android version that has been customized to look like iOS. People need to tripple check now when buying older used iPhone models.
gruez 15 hours ago|
>Does not work (yet):

>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.

driverdan 8 hours ago|||
Sounds like a huge win to me. Neither of those should be required. Replace Apple's walled garden with open login and open stores.
mshish 15 hours ago||||
I imagine official support for 3rd party app stores might open up some options for easily installing apps. However, that might require the store adding support for this type of iOS install or a newer version of iOS with 3rd party app store support.
gruez 15 hours ago|||
>I imagine official support for 3rd party app stores might open up some options for easily installing apps

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.

numpad0 10 hours ago|||
Someone is going to set up an unofficial app store for this and fill it with pirated and malware-ridden apps. Then some companies will be convinced into releasing .ipsw files for "debug and research" purposes and starts taking subscription through those installs. Then Apple will lose choices but to support randomly downloaded .ipsw files on regular iOS devices to avoid becoming the lesser option against those, and we could slowly crawl back to the code freedom we had in 2006. Or this gets DMCA'd in 3 hours and nothing will come of it.
boston_clone 14 hours ago||||
also,

>Does not work (yet)

>- Cellular, Bluetooth

>- Charging under our kernel (the phone only discharges)

fennecbutt 10 hours ago||||
I mean in theory Apple are a company of humans using services offered by other humans to make hardware used by other humans.

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?

dylan604 10 hours ago||
Didn't the legal battle between Apple and Samsung show that Apple would not be very open to a iPhone clone?
fennecbutt 9 hours ago||
Are you trying to say that phone clone companies are beholden to laws? Because I can assure you that they are not.

Just like you can still buy fakes rolexes etc lmao.

schrodinger 2 hours ago|||
It is definitely not legal to sell counterfeit goods, including imitation Rolex watches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark_Counterfeiting_Act_o...

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.

dylan604 9 hours ago|||
I'd venture the legal forces that Apple can bring to bear are not in the same ballpark as Rolex. I'd expect Apple to use their influence with US govt to get Customs to stop shipments from coming in. It's not like these devices would be made in the US.
DaSHacka 9 hours ago|||
But they also don't have to be bought exclusively in the US.
fennecbutt 9 hours ago|||
Clones/knock offs are already illegal. Doesn't really stop em. Only technology solutions can, until they're broken as well.
varispeed 9 hours ago|||
They could implement Grapple Store and then clone most popular apps.
Guillaume86 8 hours ago||
Can’t wait until someone's decide to tackle Garmin firmwares updates (porting to older or cheaper models what is purely market segmentation and not hardware limitations).
SoKamil 11 hours ago||
> It is a research bench, not a ROM: a session lasts a given number of seconds, then the kernel returns to the loader and hands over its log.

I wonder if it is here because Claude would deploy safeguards and not proceed with the project otherwise.

bitpush 10 hours ago|
> a session lasts a given number of seconds, then the kernel returns to the loader and hands over its log.

What does this? You can only 'use the device' for x seconds before ..shutting down?

ChocolateGod 5 hours ago||
Sometimes a watch dog, if you don't poke the correct thing regularly the system can think there's been a crash.
drnick1 14 hours ago||
It's interesting that this can be done, but why would anyone want to run iOS on Android devices? A more desirable outcome would be running a free Android distro like Graphene on Apple hardware. Or indeed just liberating phones controlled by Google by hacking the bootloader and replacing the OS.
Wowfunhappy 12 hours ago||
One thing that occurs to me is this project is a way to get a fully jailbroken iOS. You can tweak the kernel and go nuts. Can't do that on an iPhone.
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 11 hours ago|||
You know damn well that different people like different things. Very Brian Griffin comment.
SOLAR_FIELDS 10 hours ago||
It’s the quintessential Apple forum response on anything Apple related. Someone posts a legitimate question on some Apple related forum and the stereotypical response from any Apple fanboy is “why would you want to do that? It’s not the Apple (tm) way”
orf 10 hours ago|||
Having been given an android work phone, I can’t understand why anyone would use this willingly.

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.

drnick1 9 hours ago|||
> Having been given an android work phone, I can’t understand why anyone would use this willingly.

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.

orf 9 hours ago|||
It’s crap, sorry. It’s an inconsistent mess. Having come from iOS it’s as clear as night and day.

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.

drnick1 9 hours ago|||
> Having come from iOS it’s as clear as night and day.

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.

genxy 9 hours ago||
You guys are talking about different things.
myaccountonhn 31 minutes ago||||
As a user too, android works far better for me and I was an Apple user for a few years.

Not having the ugly frosted glass thing is a very big plus.

cromka 9 hours ago|||
I use both, iOS for past 10 years and now Android again.

Both are inconsistent mess.

wwweston 7 hours ago|||
The most desirable outcome with iPhones is to be able to run an up to date fully-patched iOS on them with up to date apps for as long as the device will function.

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.

Klonoar 6 hours ago|||
They don’t come across as an Apple fanboy; they’re just stating they’d rather have the more private OS on the better hardware.
ChrisMarshallNY 13 hours ago|||
For that warm feeling you get, when Apple turns their legal lasers on you.
hkt 43 minutes ago||
The cheapest way to heat your home this winter is to accrue so many cease and desist letters you can use them as fuel!
bijowo1676 14 hours ago|||
to finally have a Blue iMessage bubble in your group texts
gruez 14 hours ago|||
That likely doesn't work because they require device attestation to access imessage. It's what killed beeper mini too.
howunfortunate 11 hours ago|||
Stolen valor!
jeswin 7 hours ago|||
You're on a website called "hacker" news. Inclined to downvote so that this doesn't take up conversation space.
mrheosuper 4 hours ago|||
It's not about we should or not, it's about we could or not
carlosjobim 11 hours ago||
iOS is the best part of an iPhone, just like MacOS is the best part of a Mac. Android phones are cheaper than iPhones, so why not? The Android hardware is quite nice many times.
dylan604 10 hours ago|||
Is that really true? When Apple came out with the original 2006 MacPro, it was the best computer to run Windows. When the TrashCan came out, there was a specific issue with Resolve that disappeared when booted into Windows. Apple blamed DaVinci, DaVinci blamed Nvidia, Nvidia blamed Apple.

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.

lloeki 8 hours ago||
The Mac Pro 2013 carried an AMD D300/500/700 GPU, not Nvidia.
dylan604 5 hours ago||
doh! I so don't think about AMD that I even forget when they are actually used and forget they even exist. But of course it should have felt weird using Apple/Nvidea in the same breath
mayli 10 hours ago|||
Not really, the hw from apple is much better than android hw, like A18 compare with SG8 or M1 vs x86. the software itself is mostly worst than android.
carlosjobim 9 hours ago||
I can give you that, but the fact remains that there are no cheap iPhones you can buy, but there are cheap Android phones. If it becomes possible to easily upgrade your cheap Android phone to iOS, then that would be very pleasant for a lot of people.
zahirbmirza 12 hours ago||
There was a time that I would have liked iOS to run on other hardware. These days, it is so clunkly, that the the desire is not there.
nullpoint420 15 hours ago||
I'm doing the same thing with my Oneplus 6T, I have Claude piloting my phone over adb booting new candidate kernels and checking the results

What a time to be alive!

dmcrespo 13 hours ago||
It seems a bit crazy to me, plus now it opens the door to many iPhone copies... we'll have to be very careful
teaearlgraycold 11 hours ago||
No. We should be very bold.
yangm97 10 hours ago||
But I wanted to be italic.
tolerance 10 hours ago||
Heavy is the head.
schrodinger 2 hours ago||
Wrong thread, Rolexes are discussed above.
realusername 10 hours ago||
IPhones copies didn't wait this project, some people already have a full iOS reskin of Android which is very close unless you really know what to look for.
ksicmecidkci 10 hours ago||
> unless you really know what to look for

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.

nsbdhciebsbdhc 46 minutes ago|||
They qouldnt convincethe average HN user, bur your saying they wouldn't convince my grandma?
realusername 2 hours ago|||
They absolutely aren't "fancier launchers", they changed absolutely everything, they have the iOS settings, a fake appstore.. have a look on youtube on fake iphones.
torben-friis 15 hours ago||
I wonder, why 16.5? (That would be 2023's versión).

Not to detract from how awesome this is, just curious.

MBCook 15 hours ago|
They crank up security every release. Perhaps ones after that were somehow drastically harder?
pmkary 15 hours ago|
Someone finally did this, wow! 2026 just keeps getting more crazy.
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