6 ms·

Cider: Native Execution of iOS Apps on Android

91 points by jonathansizz 12y ago

0x0 12y ago
That's pretty insane. I wonder if this will open the floodgates for ios piracy hosted on android. Could you buy a cheap noname android tablet and install a pirated full ios OS environment + apps? A hassle-free, always-jailbreakable "hackintosh" of ios that is cheaper than the original could a disruptive thing.
- filmgirlcw 12y ago
  I doubt it. The jailbreak/decryption technique they used to get the IPA files was for iOS 5.1 on a 3GS. There are undoubtedly newer techniques, but actually maintaining and grabbing app files is non-trivial. And any centralized repository is instantly targeted, so you have a seedy app underground of stuff that probably isn't even current. Then you have the fact that there is 40% overhead on Android to replicate the iOS experience. And the fact that the bluetooth and GPS components won't work. So do you really think people will buy cheap tablets, spend time installing some hack to run older apps and then get subpar performance, just so they can have access to ios apps? Won't happen. A small sector of users might be willing to do this, but definitely not enough to disrupt anything. I mean, this is considerably more complex than a hackintosh and we all saw how those projects just totally destroyed Apple's Mac sales. Oh, wait...
  - maguay 12y ago
    If it's anything like the hackintosh market, this could help iOS device sales if people tried and liked the iOS apps they could get on Android. Plenty of us who had a hackintosh (myself only in a virtual machine, but still) ended up switching to the Mac after trying out OS X that way.
- wyager 12y ago
  As of now, I don't know if there are any phones with more compute power than the iPhone 5s. There certainly weren't when it came out. You would need at least a mid-range android phone/tablet to get decent responsiveness.
- slipstream- 12y ago
  You call that a hackintosh? THIS is a hackintosh: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfmmtSKCEAAQ2WQ.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfmmtSKCEAAQ2WQ.jpg:large
mlady 12y ago
very cool proof of concept. adds a new, interesting dimension to multi-platform mobile development solutions. definitely noticeable lag, so you're not fooling anyone just yet with its native-ness. how are apps loaded? Individually installed via adb? do you have access to the iTunes store on Android?
- 0x0 12y ago
  They seemed to perform decryption of app store apps on a jailbroken iphone first.
weixiyen 12y ago
The opengl looked quite smooth but the UI layer looked very slow and laggy. Is there a reason for this?
- jasonwocky 12y ago
  Much of OpenGL is implemented in hardware rather than software, and that benchmark is probably pretty close to pure OpenGL. There wouldn't be much emulation to do.
Lidador 12y ago
columbia.edu servers failing to support the extra traffic.
- krilnon 12y ago
  You're right, although it is systems.cs.columbia.edu specifically, so it's just a group within a department. If they're anything like my old research groups, the web server is just an old box or a Xen VM that's about to be retired, since people mostly aren't hammering the server daily.
mmastrac 12y ago
Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HOuitMJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cider/&hl=en&gl=ca&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HO... and the paper: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRSB_7QJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRS... EDIT: Here's a vacuumed Scribd link to another PDF version of the paper (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf) that hopefully won't go down: http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password=LHTdGCzJXkQTNZE87U3Y#full http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password...
- mdaniel 12y ago
  I guess the lesson here is that one shouldn't do something so awesome that one's hosting company can't withstand the HN (and likely Reddit) onslaught :-)
  - egil 12y ago
    Maybe the Ivy League universities should set up a distributed cdn so they can share the load when the next amazing paper hits the net :)
zmmmmm 12y ago
As an academic work this would fairly clearly fall under a fair use defense, but I wonder how the recent Oracle / Java copyright API decision would affect any potential further development / distribution / commercialization of something like this. It seems at very least it would have a huge chilling effect on anybody who might otherwise have thought to attempt it.
- filmgirlcw 12y ago
  Even without the Oracle ruling, any attempt to commercialize something like this would get shutdown because of how it decrypts IPA files. Not to mention Apple's terms of service are very clear that iOS apps cannot be distributed outside of the App Store (the enterprise deployment "store" option being the one exception, and companies pay for that privilege and have to comply with specific guidelines around that).
  - comex 12y ago
    It's not just the apps themselves. In its current state, the program in the paper replaces only the kernel interface and some user libraries (OpenGL); all the rest of the core Apple frameworks are copied from iOS. In theory, a Wine-like project could attempt to reimplement all of these frameworks, which is where the Oracle ruling comes in...
    - erichocean 12y ago
      > In theory, a Wine-like project could attempt to reimplement all of these frameworks You mean like the Google Ventures-backed Apportable[0]? It's already delivered 3 of the top 10 games on Android, and I'm currently using it to port a "normal" social network app from iOS to Android (using the development version which re-implements Core Animation on top of OpenGL ES 2). [0] http://www.apportable.com/ http://www.apportable.com/
      - josephlord 12y ago
        And getting back to the Oracle ruling I think the fair-use defence for something like this aimed at a compatible implementation would be stronger than Google's because they were trying to fork the platform and avoid the available Java licensing offers.
biased2342 12y ago
Site is down. Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg Paper Mirrors: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-asplos2014.pd...
knodi 12y ago
Amazing! I can imagine a lot of work went into create the diplomats. Can't wait to see how it unfolds... when the site comes back up.
saarons 12y ago
I've taken a few classes with some of the authors of this project and they are all amazingly talented. I remember Alex gave a presentation about a year ago on this and he mentioned how hard it was for them to wedge C++ into the Linux kernel just so they could get I/O Kit to work. It was also awesome to see the iOS Stocks app running on a Nexus 7. From what I saw it worked pretty well and aside from the uncanniness of the whole experience, it was pretty amazing to see a fully-working demo. Keep up the good work guys.
shna 12y ago
I am more interested in people who did this than what they have achieved. The difference in capability of me and them is like distance between planets. How one can become such talented!
userbinator 12y ago
This is particularly amusing in light of the fact that there are tons of Chinese clones of the iPhone that run (often iOS-skinned) Android, e.g. the Goophone/Zophone i5. Those would make great hardware to use with this.
comex 12y ago
Cider, a platform for native execution of X apps on Y? That isn't confusing at all... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider
- mdaniel 12y ago
  I feel your pain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201 although it is plausible the Cider project was named that as a nod to TransGaming.
knocknock 12y ago
Strange choice for a name, considering this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider edit: comex beat me to it.
jonathansizz 12y ago
Sorry about the inoperative server; many outlets have picked up on this over the last several hours, but I thought that a link to the original source would be most appropriate. Hopefully, tomorrow morning someone will enter the server room, remove the melted plastic, and replace the previous server with a new one..
moeedm 12y ago
I wonder which company will hire them first ... Edit: Great name.
- ianlevesque 12y ago
  Except that Cider is already the name of a porting tool http://transgaming.com/cider http://transgaming.com/cider
tluyben2 12y ago
This is amazing work. As someone who implemented a significant part of the iOS API on top of Android, I can say it's not trivial :) Disclaimer: we created an Apportable competitor for Xamarin based projects which will see the light this week.

91 points by jonathansizz 12y ago

0x0 12y ago

That's pretty insane. I wonder if this will open the floodgates for ios piracy hosted on android. Could you buy a cheap noname android tablet and install a pirated full ios OS environment + apps? A hassle-free, always-jailbreakable "hackintosh" of ios that is cheaper than the original could a disruptive thing.

filmgirlcw 12y ago
I doubt it. The jailbreak/decryption technique they used to get the IPA files was for iOS 5.1 on a 3GS. There are undoubtedly newer techniques, but actually maintaining and grabbing app files is non-trivial. And any centralized repository is instantly targeted, so you have a seedy app underground of stuff that probably isn't even current. Then you have the fact that there is 40% overhead on Android to replicate the iOS experience. And the fact that the bluetooth and GPS components won't work. So do you really think people will buy cheap tablets, spend time installing some hack to run older apps and then get subpar performance, just so they can have access to ios apps? Won't happen. A small sector of users might be willing to do this, but definitely not enough to disrupt anything. I mean, this is considerably more complex than a hackintosh and we all saw how those projects just totally destroyed Apple's Mac sales. Oh, wait...
- maguay 12y ago
  If it's anything like the hackintosh market, this could help iOS device sales if people tried and liked the iOS apps they could get on Android. Plenty of us who had a hackintosh (myself only in a virtual machine, but still) ended up switching to the Mac after trying out OS X that way.
wyager 12y ago
As of now, I don't know if there are any phones with more compute power than the iPhone 5s. There certainly weren't when it came out. You would need at least a mid-range android phone/tablet to get decent responsiveness.
slipstream- 12y ago
You call that a hackintosh? THIS is a hackintosh: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfmmtSKCEAAQ2WQ.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfmmtSKCEAAQ2WQ.jpg:large

mlady 12y ago

very cool proof of concept. adds a new, interesting dimension to multi-platform mobile development solutions. definitely noticeable lag, so you're not fooling anyone just yet with its native-ness. how are apps loaded? Individually installed via adb? do you have access to the iTunes store on Android?

0x0 12y ago
They seemed to perform decryption of app store apps on a jailbroken iphone first.

weixiyen 12y ago

The opengl looked quite smooth but the UI layer looked very slow and laggy. Is there a reason for this?

jasonwocky 12y ago
Much of OpenGL is implemented in hardware rather than software, and that benchmark is probably pretty close to pure OpenGL. There wouldn't be much emulation to do.

Lidador 12y ago

columbia.edu servers failing to support the extra traffic.

krilnon 12y ago
You're right, although it is systems.cs.columbia.edu specifically, so it's just a group within a department. If they're anything like my old research groups, the web server is just an old box or a Xen VM that's about to be retired, since people mostly aren't hammering the server daily.

mmastrac 12y ago

Cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HOuitMJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cider/&hl=en&gl=ca&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HO... and the paper: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRSB_7QJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRS... EDIT: Here's a vacuumed Scribd link to another PDF version of the paper (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf) that hopefully won't go down: http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password=LHTdGCzJXkQTNZE87U3Y#full http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password...

mdaniel 12y ago
I guess the lesson here is that one shouldn't do something so awesome that one's hosting company can't withstand the HN (and likely Reddit) onslaught :-)
- egil 12y ago
  Maybe the Ivy League universities should set up a distributed cdn so they can share the load when the next amazing paper hits the net :)

zmmmmm 12y ago

As an academic work this would fairly clearly fall under a fair use defense, but I wonder how the recent Oracle / Java copyright API decision would affect any potential further development / distribution / commercialization of something like this. It seems at very least it would have a huge chilling effect on anybody who might otherwise have thought to attempt it.

filmgirlcw 12y ago
Even without the Oracle ruling, any attempt to commercialize something like this would get shutdown because of how it decrypts IPA files. Not to mention Apple's terms of service are very clear that iOS apps cannot be distributed outside of the App Store (the enterprise deployment "store" option being the one exception, and companies pay for that privilege and have to comply with specific guidelines around that).
- comex 12y ago
  It's not just the apps themselves. In its current state, the program in the paper replaces only the kernel interface and some user libraries (OpenGL); all the rest of the core Apple frameworks are copied from iOS. In theory, a Wine-like project could attempt to reimplement all of these frameworks, which is where the Oracle ruling comes in...
  - erichocean 12y ago
    > In theory, a Wine-like project could attempt to reimplement all of these frameworks You mean like the Google Ventures-backed Apportable[0]? It's already delivered 3 of the top 10 games on Android, and I'm currently using it to port a "normal" social network app from iOS to Android (using the development version which re-implements Core Animation on top of OpenGL ES 2). [0] http://www.apportable.com/ http://www.apportable.com/
    - josephlord 12y ago
      And getting back to the Oracle ruling I think the fair-use defence for something like this aimed at a compatible implementation would be stronger than Google's because they were trying to fork the platform and avoid the available Java licensing offers.

biased2342 12y ago

Site is down. Demo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg Paper Mirrors: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-asplos2014.pdf http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-asplos2014.pd...

knodi 12y ago

Amazing! I can imagine a lot of work went into create the diplomats. Can't wait to see how it unfolds... when the site comes back up.

saarons 12y ago

I've taken a few classes with some of the authors of this project and they are all amazingly talented. I remember Alex gave a presentation about a year ago on this and he mentioned how hard it was for them to wedge C++ into the Linux kernel just so they could get I/O Kit to work. It was also awesome to see the iOS Stocks app running on a Nexus 7. From what I saw it worked pretty well and aside from the uncanniness of the whole experience, it was pretty amazing to see a fully-working demo. Keep up the good work guys.

shna 12y ago

I am more interested in people who did this than what they have achieved. The difference in capability of me and them is like distance between planets. How one can become such talented!

userbinator 12y ago

This is particularly amusing in light of the fact that there are tons of Chinese clones of the iPhone that run (often iOS-skinned) Android, e.g. the Goophone/Zophone i5. Those would make great hardware to use with this.

comex 12y ago

Cider, a platform for native execution of X apps on Y? That isn't confusing at all... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider

mdaniel 12y ago
I feel your pain: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201 although it is plausible the Cider project was named that as a nod to TransGaming.

knocknock 12y ago

Strange choice for a name, considering this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider edit: comex beat me to it.

jonathansizz 12y ago

Sorry about the inoperative server; many outlets have picked up on this over the last several hours, but I thought that a link to the original source would be most appropriate. Hopefully, tomorrow morning someone will enter the server room, remove the melted plastic, and replace the previous server with a new one..

moeedm 12y ago

I wonder which company will hire them first ... Edit: Great name.

ianlevesque 12y ago
Except that Cider is already the name of a porting tool http://transgaming.com/cider http://transgaming.com/cider

tluyben2 12y ago

This is amazing work. As someone who implemented a significant part of the iOS API on top of Android, I can say it's not trivial :) Disclaimer: we created an Apportable competitor for Xamarin based projects which will see the light this week.