Amidst stolen iPhone prototypes and very influential companies arguing, it’s cool to see that there are people just out there working on cool hacks for other people’s enjoyment.
Per CNET, David Wang managed to boot Google’s Android operating system on an iPhone 3G handset. Wang, the “planetbeing” member of the iPhone Dev Team posted a video demonstrating Android on an iPhone Wednesday.
The demo shows the boot process and Wang using Android for browsing, receiving a text message, answering a phone call, and playing music. The phone is set up with a dual-boot configuration and indeed the video begins with it running iPhone OS.
“It’s not really production quality yet,” Wang said on the video. “I’d say it’s alpha quality. But pretty much everything works.”
The Android-on-iPhone hack is a notable technical accomplishment and does indicate what’s possible. Wang has been working since at least 2008 to boot Linux on the iPhone, according to his blog. The demonstration uses a first-generation iPhone, but newer models should be supported at some point.
“It should be pretty simple to port forward to the iPhone 3G. The 3GS will take more work,” Wang said on the blog. “Hopefully with all this groundwork laid out, we can make Android a real alternative or supplement for iPhone users. Maybe we can finally get Flash. ;)”
Still, there’s work to be done. “It’s slightly buggy because I didn’t bother to implement all the Android-specific driver extensions,” he said in the video demonstration. And it’s slow, since Wang can be seen using a debug version of Android.
Since a picture’s worth a thousand words, take a gander: