Android on iphone

You like both android and iphone and want both ?
Or are you irritated like me because of stupid restrictions put by apple ? 
Or you just want to try something cool ?

There is a way to install android 2.2 on iphone. The best part is that it becomes dual boot supporting both iphone firmware and android. Iphone 2G, &3G are supported. It seems 3GS is not supported. There are some sites with paid software which claims that they support 3GS, but I am skeptical. I would not go for the paid sites. First the iphone needs to be jailbroken. There are many tutorial out there on the web. Here are few links. link1, link2, link3.

There is a simple automated process by the iphondroid software. This is supposed to be the simplest of all. There is an updated version of this software just yesterday (1st sept 2010) and it is a coveted as single click installation. But as far as I see, there is not windows version of the latest tool.


I am itching to try this. Will update you with my experiment.

Update (3-sept): r13h is the latest version of this tool. But unfortunately the windows version (r13g) does not support 2G. The website mentions that 2G version will be supported in next release. It is not clear to me if there is a windows version of r13h which supports 2G or not because when I try to download the 2G version from main page, it gives me r13f. I still searching where to find windows version of r13h.

Update (6-sept): It seems that there is some problem with the NOR backup utility which protects against bricking the iphone. The release of latest (r13h) windows version for 2G is postponed. I think its worth waiting for the protection.

Update (8-sept): There is going to be a new release (r13i) for 2G this sunday.

Update (13-sept): The new version(r13j) for windows is released. Here is the link. I am going to try soon and will update you with my experience.

Update (14-sept): After many bug fixing finally the r13m version seems to work. I am successful in installing android on my iphone. Though its not fully functional enjoying running android on iphone.See some of my pics.

Android OS on iphone

One of the members of the iphone dev team, planetbeing, ported Android OS (from google) to the iphone. Binaries are available for both 2G and 3G phones (not 3GS). The best part is that the iphone becomes a dual boot. You do not need to completely remove your iphone firmware. However, there are some issues like bugs, performance issues, and power consumption issues. So, in the current state, this is not for the faint hearted. Here is the step-by-step guide to install Android on iphone from pcworld.

Linux on iphone

Like iphone ? Love linux ? Want both of them together ? Then your answer is here. A new project named "iphoneLinux" is going to achieve this. The project is in very infant stage right now. Currently, it provides only a command line interface to interact with the iphone sub-system. You can connect to a terminal over USB connection. The best part of this project is that your iphone becomes a dual boot system (like having windows and linux on the same system). At the boot time you can choose which OS you want to boot into.

For me, the enormous potential in this project is obvious. Speaking at a technical level, currently they have support for access to screen, serial driver, serial over USB driver, Interrupts, MMU, clocks etc. But all the special features of iphone are yet to be brought under the hood. Currently there is no support for wireless networking, touchscreen, sound, accelerometer, baseband etc. Do no slam it down saying that this is useless. It is just about matter of time when they will be supported.

BTW, they are recruiting people for the project. If you are good at kernel hacking and type of guy who figures out things on you own, you can put your head in it. Keep track of their informal blog to get updates about the project.

See this video which shows the boot options and commands in linux terminal.

iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo.