From Decrypt · By Jose Antonio Lanz
In brief
Videos of iOS 16 booting on a Redmi Note 12 and a Nothing 3a spread on X, with the Redmi Note 12 clip posted October 18 passing 2 million views.
The open-source ios-sweet project pairs Apple's XNU kernel with unmodified iOS 16.7.16 files on a Snapdragon 732G phone, but Wi-Fi, mobile data, audio, camera and graphics acceleration do not work yet.
Android first ran on iPhones through iDroid in April 2010, and Corellium's Project Sandcastle repeated the feat on newer iPhones about a decade later.
Hobbyists are booting Apple’s iOS, the software that runs iPhones, on Android phones just to prove that they can, and video demonstrations are going viral on social media.
One clip of iOS 16 on a Redmi Note 12 has passed 2 million views on X, and another developer posted a build running on a Nothing 3a.
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iOS, the operating system that runs everything on an iPhone from the touchscreen to the apps, is built to run only on Apple’s own hardware. Choosing a phone has meant choosing its software, and the reverse. If that wall cracks, cheap and old phones could one day run software they were never sold with.
Android has run on iPhones before: a project called iDroid let early iPhones boot it in April 2010. A decade later, security firm Corellium launched Project Sandcastle, which put Android 10 on iPhones with Apple’s A10 chip.
Nobody has been able to make it the other way around—until now.
WTf, Running real iOS on Android hardware.
HackiOS is attempting a full code rewrite to run actual iOS on Android hardware.
They’re in the final polishing stage. If it works, the project will be completely free and open no paywalls, no premium tiers. pic.twitter.com/oQywSdi9Y5
— Md Ismail Šojal 🕷️ (@0x0SojalSec) October 16, 2026
Users are achieving good results with a combination of tools. The closest public code is an open-source project on GitHub, the site where developers share code, called ios-sweet, built for the Redmi Note 10 Pro.
It takes XNU, the kernel Apple publishes openly (the core of an operating system, which talks to the chip, memory and storage), and patches it to run on that phone’s Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G chip. Unmodified iOS 16.7.16 files from an iPhone X then sit on top.
The “readme” file from its developers calls the project an “experimental bring-up, not a usable phone OS,” and says the Redmi Note 10 Pro reaches the lock screen, home screen, Control Center and Settings, with touch and the buttons responding. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mobile data, audio and the camera do not work, the gesture to leave an app does nothing, and with no graphics driver the processor draws the screen at roughly 20 to 30 frames per second.