Android – Now Ported On The iPhone
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iPhone hacker and Dev-Team member Planetbeing just managed to port Google's Android Mobile OS to the iPhone.
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He mentions at the end of the video he is looking for more contributors and if you want he has a paypal for donations. I don't have an iPhone but I threw a few bucks his way because I'm sure this took more than a bit of effort. Hopefully Google will put some resources behind this because it is really cool
Apple have never complained about people installing Linux on MacBooks. In fact back in the G4 days they turned a blind eye to Mac on Linux which let you virtualize OS X on top of Linux (at about 95% of full speed!)
That's because running Linux is far more common than changing smartphone firmware, and Apple does not make money from Mac OS X AppStore (yet?)
Credit Card Processing: $0.25+2.9% Bandwidth for downloading even the largest 99 Cent apps (2GB) using amazon S3 (or a smaller version multiple times): $0.32
So that's basically 60 cents in cost for certain apps to be downloaded in the worst case.
Honestly, looking at that, it somewhat looks like they should wipe out the Tier 1 price point. Then it would seem they'd break-even on every paid app download.
The purchase of a single 99 cent app likely costs apple money. The purchase of a free app does as well, but usually a much smaller amount (the cost for the download bandwidth).
1.99 is probably guaranteed profit. We work with some of the largest downloads in the store from what we can tell, and even at amazon s3 rates, a 1.99 sale should generate a few cents for app.
good luck buying a copy of OSX and running it on a VM. Welcome to the QA department hell.
Maybe google will leave the US now too because of the DMCA.
One thing I've noticed when surfing around various Android forums is that people who build new ROMs or port them between phones often include a list of things that do and do not work.
He says in the video that pretty much everything works, which I'm inclined to take with a grain of salt.
This was before we knew that the iPhone wasn't planned to ship with a native API (or that the eventual API and the phone itself would be so crippled), but for a brief, shining moment, I saw a world where everyone had a real computer in their pockets, always connected.
I really ought to go through my notes and implement some of those exuberant ideas for Android.
(To my delight, at least one of them has already been made: Google Sky Map. It's also smarter, as it uses GPS to determine where you are; my idea was to use the camera and image processing to recognize constellations).
Well, the very first thing that I wanted to implement was something like this:
http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/
1. Interpreter/VM with arbitrary code.
2. Open Source
Until recently, VOIP was banned, as well.
Aside from decent notifications and real background tasks (and the aforementioned Locale, which was also on the list), the biggest blockers are the App Store and its restrictive policies.
Free at Last, brother! :)
Reverse engineering CPUs with unknown architectures like this has definitely been done before, and the fact that it has most of the major components identical with a documented set will only make that easier, after all, the changes should be relatively minor compared to the common parts.
;)
Really surprised at how fast it seems.
Reminds me efforts to emulate all manner of systems on minimal hardware, or run emulators inside of emulators.
I tossed a donation his way; hopefully we'll see a port to 3G hardware shortly, at which point I'll probably jump ship quickly. As long as the phone itself and SMS works, I can deal with little bugs and quirks while it stabilizes.
Sorry Steve, I'm just not that into you anymore. But, you do make nice hardware. :)
The sad thing is, I've come to realize more and more that they don't even make the hardware. They just package it well.
Don't get me wrong, that's a big portion of the appeal. But at the end of the day, Apple has simple become effective at putting together other people's hardware into a pretty container.
Note: I'm ignoring the software end of this, which I realize is a big factor for many people as well. I'm merely focusing on the hardware end.
What on earth makes you think theyre making their money on the hardware?
Check this graph: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-in-case-you-...
Each of the ipod, mac, iphone are a combination of apple hardware AND software. That isn't split out. Where the graph shows software, they are referring to things like final cut, iwork, etc.
They're not buying a box of transistors, a quantity of RAM, a camera etc. The hardware is just a box used to deliver a shipment of easy to use, cool enhancement. That's what people are buying. Not hardware.
Apple could never charge what they do if people were just buying hardware. You buy comparable hardware for a fraction of the cost but it doesn't have the other emotional/social stuff and that's where Apple makes their money.
I do agree it is unlikely, but I know that Apple learned that it was the choice and ability that was the big sell and people continue(d) to use Mac OS instead.
In the case of mobile phones, Apple is way ahead in terms of third party software, so I think in their eyes allowing double-booting will not improve the iphone substantially.
If your app is intensive enough that it will have trouble running on a pre-3GS device, you'll probably know it and it'll be worth buying an old device off of eBay for testing on. At this point, there are only two significant segments of the platform (pre-3GS, post-3GS), though there are other slight differences in processing speed amongst the models. If you're requiring GPS or compass, likewise you'll know to not declare that your app will run on devices that don't have those features.
I believe the App Store review process also does some degree of testing on the various devices that the developer claims their app will run on. I'm not at all sure of how exhaustive it is, though - I know I've seen people say that games were unplayable on pre-3GS phones despite officially supporting them. This certainly seems a prime (good) case for Apple to deny acceptance to the store and I hope they do more of it in the future.
And of course this will get more complicated as time goes on and new models are introduced. But it seems unlikely that Apple will introduce models with, say, varying aspect ratios, non-integer scaled resolutions, vastly different numbers of hardware buttons, or things like hardware keyboards. Freedom and diversity are great and it is absolutely necessary for the ecosystem to continue to have platforms with high amounts of them, but they also come with a price.
And this hardware combination (or 3 of the 4) isn't hard to imagine. Not for a US-based developer, at least.
Also, does making phone calls work?
Maybe my iPhone 2G is still relevant...
Apple has a history of trying to thwart efforts to run their software on other hardware, but I don't recall any efforts to prevent other software from running on their hardware. They area a hardware company, after all.
He's fine.
Oh yeah, nobody.
Was it ever used against consumers that don't try to make a shop out of modified equipment?
Countdown to flash running on the iphone in 3, 2, 1 days...
This is neither a good thing or a bad thing for Android. Nobody real cares, so it's unlikely to get much publicity positive or negative. It's no skin off Apple's back for two reasons. First, you already paid for the device; they have your money. Second, no one in their right mind would want to use Android OS over iPhone OS anyway, especially not if they've already paid for an iPhone. It'll have no impact on Google because of the aforementioned lack of real people taking any interest.
I am going to make the firm claim that this will have no noticeable impact on anything and will probably not even merit an unprompted official comment from either Apple (I'm rescinding my claim about Google, because those Googlers are notoriously chatty and I wouldn't put it past one of them to mention it on an official blog, but probably not). I invite anyone who disagrees to put money on it. I'll be $10 to charity against the first two comers.
What I'm concerned about is that some people, who under normal circumstances would have bought an Android device, might buy an iPhone thinking: "Well, this is the best of both worlds, it can run Android and the iPhone OS".
This kind of thinking could do a lot of harm to the Android community: less money for Android manufacturers who support Android's development, lesser user experience on the iPhone-Android (considering it's basically a hack) might leave a bad impression to first time users, etc.
Not only does the notification bar kick iPhone OS' notification scheme, and despite the low app volume on the market (I don't have /that/ many apps - and I didn't on the iPhone, either), I'm still lovin' my Android. It may just be the honeymoon period, though. (Got a SNES emulator running the other day - great for the commute. Disclaimer: I only have ROMs of carts that I have packed away in my closet)
App store.
The rest of what you say and it's meaning is correct and unchanged though, of course :)
This looks like it boots straight into the actual android linux, so it's about as native as you can get.
Now: Making it so the bootloader can be installed as an app via an open source project and compiling for the developer program, now that's a worthy goal and intermediary step.
Google is new Redhat, while Apple is new MS. =)
Now we're waiting for epidemic spread, fueled by new devices from several established vendors, like Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG.
I'm personally can't wait for the Nexus Six. =)