What do you get in mind when you heard the word Sandcastle? True! Your mind goes to the beautiful sandcastles that you might have tried building on a beach. Every sandcastle is unique. There are no boundaries to your imagination when building a sandcastle. On similar lines, we have Project Sandcastle – that, in simple words, allows you to run Android on an iPhone.
Check out 6 Ways to Run Two WhatsApp Accounts on iPhone/iPad.
Surprised? A few days back we saw how an Android mobile device can help you to jailbreak an iPhone using Checkra1n. However, this time we are going to load the entire Android OS on an iPhone. The cyber security startup Corellium, with special thanks to the PongoOS team and axi0mx, are behind Project Sandcastle. Corellium is not new to this feat as a decade back, David Wang and Chris Wade, co-founders of Corellium, was successful in porting Android OS on an iPhone 3G.
Contents
Project Sandcastle – How it works?
Under Project Sandcastle, you can get the taste of Android OS on iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus as well as on iPod Touch 7. Though the version of Android is in beta stage and is termed as semi-working; this is just the beginning as new developments are just around the corner.
The credit of this revolution goes to Checkra1n jailbreak. Using the Checkra1n jailbreak, Project Sandcastle acquires access to the bootloader of older iPhone models thus allowing you to install a semi-working version of Android on your iOS device. If you wish to read more about the history and technical details of the project, please click here.
Please note that features like Bluetooth, camera, and cellular data are not working as of now. To get an idea of what’s working and what’s not working, please refer the image provided below.
Check out Ra1nbox – Portable Checkra1n Jailbreak – No PC.
This project is underway for less than a month and the fact that the team working on it has a functional beta out already is extremely impressive. Through this, you can have an idea that more progress is underway.
Strangely, Corellium is the company that is currently being sued by Apple for selling access to virtual machines that run iOS. According to Apple, though Corellium presents itself as a company providing a research tool for those who are putting in efforts to find security flaws and other vulnerabilities in iOS, their true motive is to make profits by infringing over copyrights.
Project Sandcastle – Is the Android Installation permanent?
The Android installation on iPhone 7/7+ through Project Sandcastle is not permanent. So, if you happen to reboot your device, you will lose your data as well as the Android OS. There is a plus side to this as whenever you want, you can simply reboot your iOS device to get back to the native operating system.
Please note that Google Mobile Services are not present in the ported Android OS so you cannot access Google Apps or Play Store on your iPhone. Hence, it is not recommended to go with the Android build on your primary iOS device.
If you have an older iPhone lying around, it will be wise to go with that one to get a freaking Android experience on iOS. Whenever you want the native iOS operating system to come back, simply give your iOS device a reboot. Please note that the space reserved for Android OS will still be reserved. Following are the links that you will need.
- Download Builds from Here. You will get all the installation instructions in the Read Me within the downloaded file.
- Please click here to view the source code over at GitHub.
Final Words – The Future
As mentioned above, this is just an early-release beta build and more progress is underway. However, the very fact that you can run Android OS on your iPhone, makes this project extremely appealing.
With the first beta build coming out so soon, the future indeed looks bright and we might have a full Android OS running on an iPhone pretty soon. Stay tuned with us for further updates on Project Sandcastle.
Meanwhile, please check the following interesting posts.
