9 ms·

Cider Project: Run iOS apps on Android

166 points by dnt404-1 12y ago

Relys 12y ago
Sigh I saw this over a year ago and still no release???
erbo 12y ago
There was a similar project a couple of years ago, where someone got iOS apps running on a BlackBerry Playbook: http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-blackberry-real http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-blackb... At the time, I said that RIMM/BlackBerry should do whatever they could to acquire this technology, enhance it, and bundle it with BB10. Combined with BB10's already-demonstrated capability to run Android apps, it could have meant "the best of all possible worlds" for BB owners...the ability to run apps from the two most popular competing platforms, on a platform that's much more secure and higher-performing.
_mayo 12y ago
This is pretty cool. There's a demo of it running on a Nexus 7[0]. -- [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg
- danabramov 12y ago
  “I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project.”
delinka 12y ago
"...we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach..." Ah. Awesome work, but not commercially viable. :(
pavlov 12y ago
... we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach, avoiding the difficult and complex reimplementation effort of Wine. Cool, but it's against Apple's EULA to run the iOS binaries on non-Apple hardware, so unfortunately this project suffers from the same problem as emulators that require you to acquire the original firmware somehow.
- randyrand 12y ago
  The EULA isn't all that important actually. It's the copyright. It's illegal to distribute copyrighted software without permission. As long as they don't distribute that copyrighted code or derivations of that code then they should be okay. The end user then has to find a legal way to get a copy of that code.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I thought the EULA doesn't count for much, especially in Europe?
  - newaccountfool 12y ago
    It doesn't not anywhere. You bough the device, do as you please.
  - houli 12y ago
    You'd still have to get the binaries yourself from a device as Apple still own the copyright.
- nokiaman 12y ago
  > but it's against Apple's EULA This is Hacker News, right?
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    Hacker != Cracker
    - georgemcbay 12y ago
      Sometimes Hacker == Cracker, if the crack is particularly clever.
      - jbogp 12y ago
        Sometimes boolean , if the crack is particularly clever.
dljsjr 12y ago
For a minute I thought this was announcing that Cider[1] now supports iOS -> Android (Cider is currently existing tech used for porting Windows games to OS X, based on Cedega/Wine). [1]: https://www.transgaming.com/cider https://www.transgaming.com/cider
- ewzimm 12y ago
  Transgaming did add iOS and Android support a few months ago! https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-new-licensing-model-expansion-its-leading-games-technology-mobile-platfor https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-new-l...
zbowling 12y ago
> "a new system that can run iOS apps on an Android device for the first time" We at Apportable (YC W2011) have been doing that for 3 + years in a much for commercially viable way. We strive for source compatibility and are not building an emulator that requires taking libraries from an iOS device.
- azinman2 12y ago
  But the focus is on games. I am developing an app that is not a game that makes heavy use of UIKit and core animation... When can I use apportable realistically?
  - zbowling 12y ago
    We started with games and it's most of what you see on the site, but it's never been our only focus. If you hit our sales team up at contact@apportable.com, we have product that is in beta that you could get access to that might work for you.
- aye 12y ago
  Oh, boy. I was seriously addicted to EyeLord for a little while. If I want to build an Obj-C app for Android, is https://github.com/apportable/NDKSignalTest https://github.com/apportable/NDKSignalTest a good place to start?
  - zbowling 12y ago
    That's an awesome bug test case. I guess if you are the kind of dev that likes to start by copying StackOverflow question code (and not the SO answer code), then that is a perfectly acceptable project to start with to get started with to make successful apps on Android. :-) Also I have an urge to pop some eye balls in EyeLord right now.
- nokiaman 12y ago
  Your way requires the developer to use Apportable to port an iOS app to Android. If the developer has agreed with Apple to not port the app to Android, it will never be available. Their way gives the power to the user. The user copies across iOS app binary and system libraries and it's done. Basically, your way empowers the developer, their way empowers the user. You need to be commercially viable because your investors demand it. The price you charge developers may prevent some developers from porting their app. They don't need to be commercially viable because they're a research project. If they release their source code, the community of hackers will develop a free and easy to install system to allow users to run any iOS app on Android.
fidotron 12y ago
“Users no longer need to be locked into one platform. Being able to write an app once and run it anywhere has been a long-sought-after goal and a very hard problem to solve.” This is naive, stupid, or both. There never was a technical cause of lock in (as indeed the Apportable people are not alone in demonstrating), it's purely an artificial business construct with the surmountable technical hurdles being very convenient. It's well within Apple's capabilities to launch the media consumption parts of iTunes on Android, like on Windows PCs, but it should be kind of telling that they don't. One of the lessons of my career so far is never underestimate the ability of people to assume that problems are primarily technical in nature when actually the real problem is something else. Technical excuses can often be used for after the fact justification of management decisions.
- SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
  I actually thought it odd that they would cite iTunes as a feature that Android users would want. iTunes on Windows is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company...ever. If I want to buy music or video I can do it through Amazon, and I have vastly more trust for Amazon's pricing structures. (Remember the anti-trust suit that Apple lost? The one that found them guilty of artificially keeping eBook prices high? And now we have Amazon fighting with another publisher to get them to agree to lower eBook prices...)
  - Macha 12y ago
    My experience with iTunes on Windows when I had an iPod Touch 2G was the main reason I initially purchased an Android phone when I first got a smartphone.
  - jamespo 12y ago
    iTunes on Mac however is pretty good
  - al2o3cr 12y ago
    Yes, you should definitely trust the pricing of the company that started out the ebook business selling best-sellers for less than they had to pay in royalties to publishers. I mean, it couldn't possibly have been an attempt to drive competitors out of the space...
jaoued 12y ago
Awesome! We, at MyAppConverter are going beyond iOS to Android by also tackling the other mobile dev platforms. Besides, no runtime, no SDK to download. Our solution is based on Semantic Driven Code Transformation and Model Driven Engineering. We are currently doing private beta and will be coming out soon. Cheers.
- abdelsource 12y ago
  awesome, good luck ;)
- khalilup 12y ago
  Big up to myappconverter, There is documentation for your app
  - jaoued 12y ago
    Its actually not an app but a code conversion service. Initially the service has been proposed as a full cloud based service but we are also working to release a code conversion plug-in for Xcode and ADT. Instead of uploading his code, the developer will perform the conversion within his preferred IDE. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFG_XbRrb0. Full doc will be available soon on gh.
    - yacine 12y ago
      Cheers!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nokiaman 12y ago
Can Apple can stop the research team releasing the source code? The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the public have the right to see all work related to the project? I ask because the lead researcher, Jeremy Andrus, is now employed by Apple and wrote this on the YouTube video: "I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but I won't be involved from here on out." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.pdf http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.p...
- elehack 12y ago
  > The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the public have the right to see all work related to the project? For better or worse, no. NSF funding brings requirements for data sharing, but does not automatically trigger code availability.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  They can probably try, but I doubt they would succeed.
- mzs 12y ago
  I worked on code that was NSF funded and only most of the source was ever released, it had to do with using code that we were permitted to use for research purposes but not release and some patents.
yalogin 12y ago
Apps on iOS are encrypted and they say they use some modified script from a jailbreak to decrypt the apps. So for this to work, they need a jailbroken device to decrypt the apps first. So not future proof as well.
- bennyg 12y ago
  They're only encrypted when they go to the App Store. You can make a .ipa file and install it on your own/jailbroken devices without it ever being encrypted. It's extremely easy to decompile it and get variable names, string values and stack traces too.
downandout 12y ago
Here's a comment from this project's creator on the demo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg): I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but I won't be involved from here on out. So basically Apple has tried to kill or at least slow down the release of this to the public (he's obviously talented, I'm just saying that killing progress on this project likely factored somewhere into the hiring decision).
- bdcravens 12y ago
  He did have the option to say no.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Or maybe, just maybe, someone who has spent this much time developing a VM for Apple's software architecture has a great skillset and would be a welcome addition to one of Apple's teams. The same exact thing happened to the guy behind ReactOS (an Open Source Windows NT replacement). The guy became /so/ familiar with Windows that he eventually got a job on the actual Windows Kernel team.
  - kristopolous 12y ago
    I don't get why hackers want to work at such large companies. If someone has over about 50 employees or about 10 million backing, I don't see what's interesting about it. edit (due to the downvotes): Sorry, this was an honest question. I've been working for about 15 years and have always been really put off by the institutional structure of large companies ... the constitution of them just doesn't work for the kind of green-field I'm (and I thought most hackers) are looking for. I wasn't trying to be negative or deleterious --- I really didn't get it.
    - avalaunch 12y ago
      Bigger paycheck, better benefits, better job security, less and more predictable hours, access to amazing tech.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Seems way more commercially focused than is reasonable given that it is NSF funded, especially given the fact that there is nothing technically insurmountable that locks users into one eco-system vs the other.
piyush_soni 12y ago
there are all kinds of cool iOS apps that they cannot run, like iTunes and iMessage Really? iTunes is cool? I'm yet to see someone who likes it, including my friends who are big time iOS fans.
- bigdubs 12y ago
  I doubt they mean iTunes the desktop application; the "music" player on iOS is called "Music.app". As far as iTunes as a main music library manager; it's very, very good (though iTunes 12 has soured me on it a bit). On <insert name of popular private torrent tracker>, which is known it's users having tens of thousands of FLAC file libraries, iTunes still rates pretty decently among people running OS X.
- CalRobert 12y ago
  Yeah, there are some great iOS only apps but those certainly aren't on the list.
- M4v3R 12y ago
  I may be in a minority, but I actually like iTunes. It handles my music library for me, has good OS integration, and looks nice with all album covers in albums section.
darkstar999 12y ago
Looks like they recently changed the name to Cycada.
- Kallynx 12y ago
  Yes they did, look at this http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/ http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/
United857 12y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg Besides the legal obstacles to making this commerically viable, there are technical ones too: Unfortunately this technology is quite a bit more complicated than a simple .apk download - it involves system-wide changes including a modified Linux kernel.
LeicaLatte 12y ago
The pirates say their thanks.
christina_b 12y ago
There were a couple of attempts at similar stuff before, I was working on a similar thing (called Magenta) but I kind of lost motivation a long time ago.
padraic7a 12y ago
So what are the chances that this will get released in some sort of end-user friendly format? If the original developers don't do it will others be able to apply the ideas now that they are proven to work?
Gavin321 12y ago
Do you know how to transfer iTunes library to new computer? http://www.leawo.org/tutorial/how-to-transfer-itunes-library-to-new-computer.html http://www.leawo.org/tutorial/how-to-transfer-itunes-library...

166 points by dnt404-1 12y ago

Relys 12y ago

Sigh I saw this over a year ago and still no release???

erbo 12y ago

There was a similar project a couple of years ago, where someone got iOS apps running on a BlackBerry Playbook: http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-blackberry-real http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-blackb... At the time, I said that RIMM/BlackBerry should do whatever they could to acquire this technology, enhance it, and bundle it with BB10. Combined with BB10's already-demonstrated capability to run Android apps, it could have meant "the best of all possible worlds" for BB owners...the ability to run apps from the two most popular competing platforms, on a platform that's much more secure and higher-performing.

_mayo 12y ago

This is pretty cool. There's a demo of it running on a Nexus 7[0]. -- [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg

danabramov 12y ago
“I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project.”

delinka 12y ago

"...we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach..." Ah. Awesome work, but not commercially viable. :(

pavlov 12y ago

... we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach, avoiding the difficult and complex reimplementation effort of Wine. Cool, but it's against Apple's EULA to run the iOS binaries on non-Apple hardware, so unfortunately this project suffers from the same problem as emulators that require you to acquire the original firmware somehow.

randyrand 12y ago
The EULA isn't all that important actually. It's the copyright. It's illegal to distribute copyrighted software without permission. As long as they don't distribute that copyrighted code or derivations of that code then they should be okay. The end user then has to find a legal way to get a copy of that code.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I thought the EULA doesn't count for much, especially in Europe?
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  It doesn't not anywhere. You bough the device, do as you please.
- houli 12y ago
  You'd still have to get the binaries yourself from a device as Apple still own the copyright.
nokiaman 12y ago
> but it's against Apple's EULA This is Hacker News, right?
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  Hacker != Cracker
  - georgemcbay 12y ago
    Sometimes Hacker == Cracker, if the crack is particularly clever.
    - jbogp 12y ago
      Sometimes boolean , if the crack is particularly clever.

dljsjr 12y ago

For a minute I thought this was announcing that Cider[1] now supports iOS -> Android (Cider is currently existing tech used for porting Windows games to OS X, based on Cedega/Wine). [1]: https://www.transgaming.com/cider https://www.transgaming.com/cider

ewzimm 12y ago
Transgaming did add iOS and Android support a few months ago! https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-new-licensing-model-expansion-its-leading-games-technology-mobile-platfor https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-new-l...

zbowling 12y ago

> "a new system that can run iOS apps on an Android device for the first time" We at Apportable (YC W2011) have been doing that for 3 + years in a much for commercially viable way. We strive for source compatibility and are not building an emulator that requires taking libraries from an iOS device.

azinman2 12y ago
But the focus is on games. I am developing an app that is not a game that makes heavy use of UIKit and core animation... When can I use apportable realistically?
- zbowling 12y ago
  We started with games and it's most of what you see on the site, but it's never been our only focus. If you hit our sales team up at contact@apportable.com, we have product that is in beta that you could get access to that might work for you.
aye 12y ago
Oh, boy. I was seriously addicted to EyeLord for a little while. If I want to build an Obj-C app for Android, is https://github.com/apportable/NDKSignalTest https://github.com/apportable/NDKSignalTest a good place to start?
- zbowling 12y ago
  That's an awesome bug test case. I guess if you are the kind of dev that likes to start by copying StackOverflow question code (and not the SO answer code), then that is a perfectly acceptable project to start with to get started with to make successful apps on Android. :-) Also I have an urge to pop some eye balls in EyeLord right now.
nokiaman 12y ago
Your way requires the developer to use Apportable to port an iOS app to Android. If the developer has agreed with Apple to not port the app to Android, it will never be available. Their way gives the power to the user. The user copies across iOS app binary and system libraries and it's done. Basically, your way empowers the developer, their way empowers the user. You need to be commercially viable because your investors demand it. The price you charge developers may prevent some developers from porting their app. They don't need to be commercially viable because they're a research project. If they release their source code, the community of hackers will develop a free and easy to install system to allow users to run any iOS app on Android.

fidotron 12y ago

“Users no longer need to be locked into one platform. Being able to write an app once and run it anywhere has been a long-sought-after goal and a very hard problem to solve.” This is naive, stupid, or both. There never was a technical cause of lock in (as indeed the Apportable people are not alone in demonstrating), it's purely an artificial business construct with the surmountable technical hurdles being very convenient. It's well within Apple's capabilities to launch the media consumption parts of iTunes on Android, like on Windows PCs, but it should be kind of telling that they don't. One of the lessons of my career so far is never underestimate the ability of people to assume that problems are primarily technical in nature when actually the real problem is something else. Technical excuses can often be used for after the fact justification of management decisions.

SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
I actually thought it odd that they would cite iTunes as a feature that Android users would want. iTunes on Windows is one of the worst pieces of software by a major company...ever. If I want to buy music or video I can do it through Amazon, and I have vastly more trust for Amazon's pricing structures. (Remember the anti-trust suit that Apple lost? The one that found them guilty of artificially keeping eBook prices high? And now we have Amazon fighting with another publisher to get them to agree to lower eBook prices...)
- Macha 12y ago
  My experience with iTunes on Windows when I had an iPod Touch 2G was the main reason I initially purchased an Android phone when I first got a smartphone.
- jamespo 12y ago
  iTunes on Mac however is pretty good
- al2o3cr 12y ago
  Yes, you should definitely trust the pricing of the company that started out the ebook business selling best-sellers for less than they had to pay in royalties to publishers. I mean, it couldn't possibly have been an attempt to drive competitors out of the space...

jaoued 12y ago

Awesome! We, at MyAppConverter are going beyond iOS to Android by also tackling the other mobile dev platforms. Besides, no runtime, no SDK to download. Our solution is based on Semantic Driven Code Transformation and Model Driven Engineering. We are currently doing private beta and will be coming out soon. Cheers.

abdelsource 12y ago
awesome, good luck ;)
khalilup 12y ago
Big up to myappconverter, There is documentation for your app
- jaoued 12y ago
  Its actually not an app but a code conversion service. Initially the service has been proposed as a full cloud based service but we are also working to release a code conversion plug-in for Xcode and ADT. Instead of uploading his code, the developer will perform the conversion within his preferred IDE. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFG_XbRrb0. Full doc will be available soon on gh.
  - yacine 12y ago
    Cheers!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

nokiaman 12y ago

Can Apple can stop the research team releasing the source code? The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the public have the right to see all work related to the project? I ask because the lead researcher, Jeremy Andrus, is now employed by Apple and wrote this on the YouTube video: "I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but I won't be involved from here on out." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.pdf http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-asplos2014-cider.p...

elehack 12y ago
> The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the public have the right to see all work related to the project? For better or worse, no. NSF funding brings requirements for data sharing, but does not automatically trigger code availability.
spiritplumber 12y ago
They can probably try, but I doubt they would succeed.
mzs 12y ago
I worked on code that was NSF funded and only most of the source was ever released, it had to do with using code that we were permitted to use for research purposes but not release and some patents.

yalogin 12y ago

Apps on iOS are encrypted and they say they use some modified script from a jailbreak to decrypt the apps. So for this to work, they need a jailbroken device to decrypt the apps first. So not future proof as well.

bennyg 12y ago
They're only encrypted when they go to the App Store. You can make a .ipa file and install it on your own/jailbroken devices without it ever being encrypted. It's extremely easy to decompile it and get variable names, string values and stack traces too.

downandout 12y ago

Here's a comment from this project's creator on the demo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg): I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but I won't be involved from here on out. So basically Apple has tried to kill or at least slow down the release of this to the public (he's obviously talented, I'm just saying that killing progress on this project likely factored somewhere into the hiring decision).

bdcravens 12y ago
He did have the option to say no.
Someone1234 12y ago
Or maybe, just maybe, someone who has spent this much time developing a VM for Apple's software architecture has a great skillset and would be a welcome addition to one of Apple's teams. The same exact thing happened to the guy behind ReactOS (an Open Source Windows NT replacement). The guy became /so/ familiar with Windows that he eventually got a job on the actual Windows Kernel team.
- kristopolous 12y ago
  I don't get why hackers want to work at such large companies. If someone has over about 50 employees or about 10 million backing, I don't see what's interesting about it. edit (due to the downvotes): Sorry, this was an honest question. I've been working for about 15 years and have always been really put off by the institutional structure of large companies ... the constitution of them just doesn't work for the kind of green-field I'm (and I thought most hackers) are looking for. I wasn't trying to be negative or deleterious --- I really didn't get it.
  - avalaunch 12y ago
    Bigger paycheck, better benefits, better job security, less and more predictable hours, access to amazing tech.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

Seems way more commercially focused than is reasonable given that it is NSF funded, especially given the fact that there is nothing technically insurmountable that locks users into one eco-system vs the other.

piyush_soni 12y ago

there are all kinds of cool iOS apps that they cannot run, like iTunes and iMessage Really? iTunes is cool? I'm yet to see someone who likes it, including my friends who are big time iOS fans.

bigdubs 12y ago
I doubt they mean iTunes the desktop application; the "music" player on iOS is called "Music.app". As far as iTunes as a main music library manager; it's very, very good (though iTunes 12 has soured me on it a bit). On <insert name of popular private torrent tracker>, which is known it's users having tens of thousands of FLAC file libraries, iTunes still rates pretty decently among people running OS X.
CalRobert 12y ago
Yeah, there are some great iOS only apps but those certainly aren't on the list.
M4v3R 12y ago
I may be in a minority, but I actually like iTunes. It handles my music library for me, has good OS integration, and looks nice with all album covers in albums section.

darkstar999 12y ago

Looks like they recently changed the name to Cycada.

Kallynx 12y ago
Yes they did, look at this http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/ http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/

United857 12y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg Besides the legal obstacles to making this commerically viable, there are technical ones too: Unfortunately this technology is quite a bit more complicated than a simple .apk download - it involves system-wide changes including a modified Linux kernel.

LeicaLatte 12y ago

The pirates say their thanks.

christina_b 12y ago

There were a couple of attempts at similar stuff before, I was working on a similar thing (called Magenta) but I kind of lost motivation a long time ago.

padraic7a 12y ago

So what are the chances that this will get released in some sort of end-user friendly format? If the original developers don't do it will others be able to apply the ideas now that they are proven to work?

Gavin321 12y ago

Do you know how to transfer iTunes library to new computer? http://www.leawo.org/tutorial/how-to-transfer-itunes-library-to-new-computer.html http://www.leawo.org/tutorial/how-to-transfer-itunes-library...