This is way different from the video that showed a “Hackintoshed” iPhone OS running on an HTC Hero. That turned out to be an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke. This is the real deal: a video that shows an iPhone dual-booting an Android OS, by Dev-Team member planetbeing. (video available after the cut)
The mod makes use of OpeniBoot, a Linux 2.6-based bootloader that allows the iPhone to dual-boot between the regular iPhone OS and Android. The first parts of the video show the boot, as well as a few comments regarding the initial mod’s limitations; basically, Android can run and is pretty useable, but the “below production-quality” user experience is a bit rough on the initial build. Understandable, since the iPhone doesn’t come with the external buttons and controls usually found on Android phones.
The video shows the “Android iPhone” to work well enough though, or at least the most important smartphone functions. The rest of the video shows the modified phone connecting to a Wi-fi network and running a browser, use of a virtual keyboard for character input, multimedia playback, and primary phone functions such as SMS and voice calls.
It’s just the initial build, and more functions should follow as the software evolves. The source and images for the previewed build are already available here, although the current build will only support the original iPhone and iPhone 3G (planetbeing notes that porting it to the 3GS is going to “take more work”). But for people who are looking to get the best of both worlds without having to buy two phones? Here’s your solution. Maybe someday we’ll actually get to see Adobe Flash running on an iPhone.
Tags: Android, Hacks, iPhone, Mobile Phones, Smartphones
