How to Install Android on Your iPhone

7/31/2019 How to Install Android on Your iPhone

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How to Install Android on Your iPhone

Here's how to install Google's Android OS on your iPhone. Beforewarned, though: This hack isn't for the faint of heart.

Editor's note: David Wang is an accomplished iPhone hacker and

member of theiPhone Dev Team. Tinker with your gadgets at your

own peril--we're not responsible for what happens if you brick your

iPhone, however unlikely that may be.)

Maybe you want to liberate your iPhone from Apple's clutches. Maybe

you just want to tinker with something new. Either way, you've

seenAndroid running on the iPhone, and you want to try it for

yourself.

Still a Work in Progress

Graphic: Eliza WeeAlthough this port does

everything that you expect your smartphone to be able to do, it isn't

usable for day-to-day activities just yet--I haven't implemented any

power-management functions, so a fully charged iPhone running

Android will last only an hour or so.

A few bugs and performance issues remain, too, so while the phone

will be usable, it won't be fast. If you do something unexpected (such

as forcing the iPhone off), there is a small chance that you may end

up restoring your device. However, it is impossible for any bugs to

brick or disable your iPhone permanently.

Finally, media syncing is not working, so loading your media ontoyour phone is kind of a pain. I'm working as hard as I can, though, and

I expect to fix these issues soon.

Required Reading
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Start by brushing up on the fundamentals of iPhone maintenance:

how to get your iPhone intoRecovery Mode, how to put it intoDFU

Mode, and how to perform a firmware restore from those modes.

The iPhone is a well-engineered device, and it is virtually impossible

to brick if you know these techniques. If all else fails, remember thatyou can always restore using DFU Mode.

You'll also need to be reasonably comfortable working in a command-

line interface, and unless you're confident in trying to compile your

own binaries, you'll need a PC running Linux (or a Linux virtual

machine).

What You Need

1. A first-generation iPhone or aniPhone 3Gwith firmware versionsbetween 2.0 and 3.1.2, jailbroken withRedsn0w,Blacksn0w,

orPwnageTool. If you already updated your handset to 3.1.3 or to a

4.0 beta, you must use PwnageTool to create a jailbroken 3.1.2 .ipsw

file to restore down to.

Note that I am explicitly excluding theiPhone3GS, alliPod Touchmodels, and theiPad. This hack will not work with

those devices (yet). I am also explicitly excluding iPhone OS 3.1.3 and

all of the 4.0 betas. It will not work with theSpiritjailbreak, either.

If you haven't yet jailbroken your iPhone, don't worry--it's a simple

process that consists mainly of pressing buttons on the device when

prompted and clicking the next button in a wizard. I humbly

recommendRedsn0w, since I wrote much of the code for that

program.2. A 32-bit Linux system or virtual machine (I recommendUbuntu).

See "How to Easily Install Ubuntu Linux on Any PC" for instructions if

you don't already have Ubuntu.

Although much of the process can be conducted on any machine, one

of the tools involved (called 'oibc') has not yet been ported to
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Windows. In addition, the binaries I provide are compiled on a 32-bit

Ubuntu machine.

All of the utilities compile for Linux and Mac, however, so if you're

feeling adventurous, compile the sources

atgithub.com/planetbeing/iphonelinuxandgithub.com/planetbeing/xp

wninstead of using the binaries.

3. The prebuilt images and binaries; the exact files you use depend on

whether you have afirst-generation iPhoneor aniPhone 3G.

4. The iPhone OS 3.1.2 .ipsw file for your device, namely either

iPhone1,1_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw or

iPhone1,2_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw. Chances are, you already have

this file somewhere on your computer, but if you need it, you

candownload it.5. The firmware for theMarvell WLANchip inside the iPhone. Go to

the URL, and on the right side of the page you should see a drop-

down menu labeled 'Choose your platform'. Select Linux 2.6 -

Fedorafrom the drop-down menu and click the Searchbutton

underneath. Download the file labeled SD-8686-LINUX26-SYSKT-

9.70.3.p24-26409.P45-GPL. You'll get a file called SD-8686-LINUX26-

SYSKT-9.70.3.p24-26409.P45-GPL.zip.

Android on iPhone, Step-by-Step

The first steps collect the multitouch and WLAN firmware for the

iPhone. We cannot legally redistribute these binary blobs, so it is

necessary for you to extract them from the .ipsw file and Marvell's

Website.

1. On the Linux machine, create a folder named firmware in yourhome directory.

2. Extract SD-8686-FEDORA26FC6-SYSKT-GPL-9.70.3.p24-

26409.P45.tar from SD-8686-LINUX26-SYSKT-9.70.3.p24-26409.P45-

GPL.zip to a temporary folder.
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3. Extract FwImage/helper_sd.bin and FwImage/sd8686.bin from SD-

8686-FEDORA26FC6-SYSKT-GPL-9.70.3.p24-26409.P45.tar and put

them inside your 'firmware' folder.

4. Rename helper_sd.bin to sd8686_helper.bin.

You have your WLAN firmware at this point. Now for the multitouchfirmware.

5. On the Linux machine, create a folder named idroid in your home

directory and extract utils/dripwn from the prebuilt tarball (.tar

archive) you downloaded into it.

6. Copy or move the 3.1.2 .ipsw file you obtained from Apple's

Website into the same 'idroid' folder as dripwn.

7. Start a command-line shell (Terminal under Ubuntu) and navigate to

the 'idroid' folder you created. You can type cd ~/idroid to do this.8. Go tothis pageif you have an iPhone 3G orthis pageif you have

an older iPhone. Copy the VFDecrypt key.

9. In the shell you started earlier, if you have a first-generation iPhone,

type the following:

./dripwn iPhone1,1_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw [the VFDecrypt key you

copied]

If you have a iPhone 3G, type the following:

./dripwn iPhone1,2_3.1.2_7D11_Restore.ipsw [the VFDecrypt key youcopied]

10. After a while, the command will finish and

you will have zephyr_main.bin, zephyr_aspeed.bin, and zephyr2.bin in

your 'idroid' folder. Move these files into the 'firmware' folder.

You now have all the files needed for Android, and you can begin

installing it.

11. If you haven't already, install the OpenSSH tool on your iPhone

viaCydia.
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12. If you just installed OpenSSH, connect toyour iPhone via SSH, log in as root with the password alpine, and

type passwd root to change the password for root. Then,

enter passwd mobile to change the password for the mobile user.

Don't skip this step. All of theiPhone wormsout there affect you only

if you haven't changed the SSH password from the default.

13. Extract prebuilt/android.img.gz, prebuilt/cache.img,

prebuilt/ramdisk.img, prebuilt/system.img, prebuilt/userdata.img, and

zImage from the prebuilt tarball.

14. Use the 'scp' command or an SFTP client to

upload all of these files into the /private/var folder on the iPhone.

You can use these commands on Linux, if you wish to use scp

instead of an SFTP graphical-interface client. Assuming you're in the

same folder as the files, enter:

scp android.img.gz root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

scp cache.img root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

scp ramdisk.img root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

scp system.img root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

scp userdata.img root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

scp zImage root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/

15. Using the SFTP client or scp, create a folder called firmware in the

/private/var folder on the iPhone; afterward, upload all the files from

the 'firmware' folder you created earlier to it.If the 'firmware' folder you created earlier is inside your home

directory, you can use the following command:

scp -r ~/firmware/ root@[ip address of iPhone]:/private/var/firmware
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21. Type sudo ./oibc in Terminal.

The same messages that appeared on the iPhone screen should now

appear in Terminal. You should next make a backup of the NOR (the

device on which the iPhone's bootloader is stored) in case something

goes wrong, so you don't brick your iPhone.

22. Type nor_read 0x09000000 0x0 1048576 in Terminal/oibc. This will

read the entire NOR into main memory.

23. Type ~norbackup.bin@0x09000000:1048576 in Terminal/oibc. A

file will appear in the 'idroid' folder called norbackup.bin. Keep this

somewhere safe.

The command uploads the NOR to the computer. After you make this

backup, you are now free to modify the NOR. The next step installs

OpeniBoot onto the NOR, supplanting the existing Apple iBootbootloader.

24. Type install in Terminal/oibc.

This process may take a few minutes. Wait until the installation-

complete message appears.

25. Type reboot in Terminal/oibc and then exit out of it by

pressing Ctrl-C.

The OpeniBoot menu should now come up whenever you boot your

iPhone. Note that you can uninstall OpeniBoot from oibc with the

'uninstall' command. Type help for a list of all OpeniBoot commands.

You can still get into the iPhone OS's recovery mode by holding

down Home on the iPhone OS option in the menu until the 'Connect to

iTunes' image appears (instead of just tapping Home).


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You should be finished! Use the OpeniBoot

menu to boot Android by selecting that OS from the menu whenever

you wish. Unfortunately, no good method to shut down Androidexists yet, so the only way to turn it off is to hold down

the Hold and Home buttons until you've forced the phone off.

Check outiDroidWikifor more tutorials and tips on what you can do

with your new Android iPhone.

David Wang is a hobbyist hacker better known as "planetbeing." For

the latest developments, visit his blog,Linux on the iPhone.
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Documents

How to Install Android on Your iPhone