Tech

How to run Android on your iPhone, sort of

If you just can't choose between Android and iPhone, why not choose both? The developer who put Windows 95 on the Apple Watch set out to put Android on the iPhone.

Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Senior Contributing Editor June 8, 2016 at 6:07 a.m. PT

Given enough time and money, you can overcome pretty much any obstacle, and Nick Lee, CTO at mobile design and development studio Tendigi, and the developer who got Windows 95 running on an Apple Watch, has proven that by making Android run on the iPhone... well, sort of.

Lee started with a Lemaker HiKey, a credit-card sized computer board that features an 8-core, 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor and just happens to be the official reference board of the Android Open Source Project (ASOP).

Onto the hardware Lee loaded a custom Android build based off the official Marshmallow 6.0.1 release. He then took this board and placed it into a custom 3D printed iPhone case along with a battery pack (because the board drew too much power for the built-in iPhone battery), and then hooked the Android board up to the iPhone via a Lightning cable tether.

Lee then boots the Android OS on the board using a custom Tendigi app on the iPhone's home screen. Technically, the iPhone isn't running Android, but rather allowing the OS to share the display, but the final effect is pretty impressive, especially since the Android board can be controlled using the touchscreen display on the iPhone.

"The holy war is over, brethren," writes Lee. "At Tendigi, we've designed and built a case that allows iPhone devotees to sample the best Google has to offer."

It remains to be seen if this project will be transformed into a commercial product, but it does show the power that can be crammed into something as small as a smartphone case.