A new tweet had shocked many people as it appeared. We initially did a double-take when we saw the post mentioning Android for iPhone devices.
Introducing Project Sandcastle: Android for the iPhone. We’re excited to see what the developer community builds from this foundation. We’d particularly like to thank the team behind Checkra1n and PongoOS for their support and assistance.https://t.co/Kq1qszF8G2
— Corellium (@CorelliumHQ) March 4, 2020
Unlocking Apple devices to run alternative firmware installments has always split the IT industry’s views, even if you’d want to install an official iOS version altered in a non-regular way; for instance, with an SSH server running so you can be able to log into the command line from a PC.
This is known as jailbreaking, a concept that different people see in different ways. To some, it makes digital freedom possible, but to others, it is the proof of an offender’s attitude towards the digital industry.
Corellium, the company that created Project Sandcastle, has only two blog posts on the official website, and are linked to legal action from Apple due to this iPhone ‘freeing.’
According to the company, “Android for the iPhone has many exciting practical applications, from forensics research to dual-booting ephemeral devices to combatting e-waste. Our goal has always been to push mobile research forward, and we’re excited to see what the developer community builds from this foundation.”
What To Do
Just to be clear, we usually end any posts of this type by advising against allowing jailbroken smartphones on your business network because for IT staff at work, dealing with an untested and unknown condition of the device could end up being a disaster.
However, when it comes to the current Sandcastle builds, we don’t really have to advise against it because the range and functionality of the software are rather limited. If you still want to try it at home, you can get Android on your iPhone, with the condition to be a model number greater than 6 and smaller than 8.
Corellium writes on the official website: “Android for the iPhone is in beta and has only had limited testing. Any impact on battery, performance, or other components is unknown. Please use caution in installing and using this version.”
The green parts show the components in each device that function properly, and the pink dots are the parts that you cannot use. Simply put, the parts of your device, labeled Cellular on the label, won’t function anywhere.
Therefore, you won’t be able to use the audio function, not even on an iPad, nor the camera, Bluetooth, and on some devices, no display. However, the unfortunate news is the CPU row, which demonstrates that the Sandcastle builds only work on iPhone 7 devices, as well as the iPad 7G.
If you have a spare iPhone 7 around and decide to try out this Android build for Apple devices, be careful, because users have reported critical overheating issues so far.
