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Want to run iOS apps on your Android? Back this

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32 pointsshawndumas16 comments

It's ambitious, but cmw can do it if anyone can. He already has most of the bootloaders running in QEMU, and is making progress on the kernel. I'm not sure that it would work for anything but an incredibly-slow demo on an Android phone, but it would be useful on a desktop. Developers also benefit: you'd get a fully correct emulator to locally test their apps, rather than needing the often-incorrect simulators and x86 builds. It's not a trivial project, but if it ends up working, it would be pretty damn useful.

(It's also not something Apple can shut down: you'd just download the iPhone firmware file and run from that. There's no copyright infringement here, you'd just be downloading publicity available files and running them on a different "kind of device".)

Edit: I think this post title is a bit misleading. I'd say "Ambitious Kickstarter project to run iOS in QEMU", since the side-effect of running on Android is both likely useless and not really what it's about.

Apple may not be able to shut it down, but I wonder if they would go after app developers that use it.

Apple's terms forbid developers from releasing their apps outside official channels. However, say I release my iOS app to customers using an emulator running on Windows. Nothing is hitting an Apple device, so in theory they shouldn't have any jurisdiction.

Is the mere fact that it's using Apple's APIs enough reason for them to kick me out of the developer program, therefore pulling my apps from the app store and my customer's devices?

It's not "using Apple's APIs", though. It's emulating the hardware of an iPhone, and then running an unmodified iOS on top.

Also, unless this thing (which is really intended as a development and security testing tool, not a user-facing product) "takes off" (and even, possibly, if it does), they will simply not care. I have apps in Cydia — hell, I've written part of Cydia itself — and they have no issues (so far) with my App Store apps. I really don't think they'll have a big issue with this. Maybe they'll block it from the App Store, etc, but I doubt they'd do anything more than that.

If it's redistributing iOS, this sounds like a simple, old-fashioned copyright violation. That sounds like the kind of thing Apple would be likely to shut down, and I can't really say that I blame them, even though this is a cool idea.

If you read Xuzz's comment up-thread, he specifies that you (the user) download the firmware from Apple: this project does not require any redistribution of any of Apple's intellectual property.

One of the best things about the iPhone simulator is that it is a simulator and not an emulator (unlike, say, Android). This makes it fast enough to actually be usable for day to day bug testing.

And also broken enough that it's STILL useless for any serious development. The APIs behave differently at times (e.g. location services), you can't simulate a lot of conditions you can on the Android emulator (memory, network speed, sensors, GPS movement, SMS, calls, loss of signal...) making the simulator useful only for playing with visual layout.

I like to believe I am doing serious development and I find the iPhone Simulator immensely helpful. Maybe because my apps don't use location services. My point is, as long as you understand the limitations, it's a very helpful tool. Fortunately it's always possible to debug on the device if you need anything that cannot be done in the simulator.

Direct link to the Kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmwdotme/iemu-an-open-so...

Thanks.

These guys are gonna get the fuck sued outta them; Asking for money is asking for trouble.

Nice idea though, hopefully they open source the important guts before Apple's lawyer-jackals pounce.

Apple really doesn't have a leg to stand on, it's probably a violation of the licensing for iOS but other than that what can they sue over?

and it's on github apparently https://github.com/cmwdotme/QEMU-s5l89xx-port

Please link to the original source.

Wouldn't it be smarter to emulate at the API level instead of at the hardware level?

It would be if "running iOS apps on Android" was actually the goal of the project, which it isn't. The goal is for easier debugging and security research of iOS and iOS apps, being based on QEMU and running on non-desktop platforms would just be a side effect.

I doubt they ever reach the point where they have enough performance to run anything more than a very slow demo on an android device.

Replacing the simulator for iOS development is a nice goal though. It is okay, but I found a couple bugs in it that were annoying.

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