14 DAY TRIAL // Two rivals on the mobile phone spare have joined hands, though not officially, as one enthusiast managed to port Google's Android operating system to Apple's iPhone. This is not something that one sees every day, that's for sure, and not something that one would like to use, but it's only a first step, and things might get better following further development.
David Wang is the one who managed to bring the Android OS to the iPhone, and he provided proof of his achievement too, in the form of a video that can be seen embedded at the bottom of this article, coupled with a downloadable file. The port was made on the first generation iPhone, but it might be brought to iPhone 3G soon.
“Pre-built images and sources at http://www.mediafire.com/?xqjzn12igfn. Read the README. For generic openiboot instructions, there's plenty now that you can search for. It should be pretty simple to port forward to the iPhone 3G. The 3GS will take more work. 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,” Wang states in a recent blog post.
What users will see in the below demo includes the boot process, and Google's Android operating system being used on the iPhone for browsing, answering a phone call, playing music, and receiving a text message. The video begins with the handset running under the iPhone OS, and it seems that it has been set up with a dual-boot configuration.
For the time being, the solution is only in an alpha state, but, as stated above, the work on the Android port on iPhone will continue, and better results are to be seen in the future. Of course, there are a series of incompatibilities, including the 'small' number of buttons present on the iPhone, or the lack of Android-specific driver extensions. One way or the other, this achievement is a notable one, especially since it took quite a while for this running version to emerge.