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Possible Duplicate:
Is There iPhone App Emulation App On Android?

I am looking for a way to run apple apps on my Android Honeycomb device, without rooting if possible.

Weather an IOS emulator or an app, or whatever...as long as I can go to the apple app store, download/install/run the app right from my Android device.

Thank you

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marked as duplicate by eldarerathis♦, Al Everett Dec 3 '11 at 14:14

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

3 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

Well, it turns out that running iOS apps on the BlackBerry PlayBook has been done, so I have to take back my conclusion here; it may well be done on Android also. The PlayBook does have really good support for native apps and the C/C++ toolchain1, so that may be a factor here, but kudos to that guy for doing so much work porting the Objective-C libraries.

1I work for RIM, so feel free to take that with a grain of salt.

Unlike Android, (most) iOS apps are written in Objective C and compiled for the device; they're not something portable like Java. In other words, running an iOS app on Android requires:

  1. Writing an abstraction layer to take advantage of the Android device's hardware and emulating the rest of the iOS device's hardware
  2. A fast enough processor, enough memory, etc. to do the above
  3. Porting all of iOS's library and system functions usable by apps to Android
  4. Working around the Apple App Store's DRM

The problems with this are many:

  • It would be an incredible amount of work
  • Apple hasn't open sourced anything. How are you supposed to port their code? The hardware can be reverse engineered but that's also quite difficult.
  • I highly doubt any current Android device could support something like this, much less run the iOS apps at a usable speed.
  • Working around the DRM may not be possible. I would assume it's hardware-dependent and so the emulation costs there would be high if it was even feasible.
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up vote 2 down vote

Many iOS developers also port their apps to other mobile operating systems, including Android. If not - search the Android Market; chances are you will find a similar app, or at least one with similar functionality.

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I am looking for an iOS emulator. I do not need this answer: ...developers port their apps to Android... – Omar Dec 8 '11 at 1:33
up vote 1 down vote

Sorry, this isn't possible. iOS apps can only be run on iOS devices or under the simulator on OS X.

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I am looking for an iOS emulator. I do not need this answer. PS. Check reply #1 – Omar Dec 8 '11 at 1:56
3  
@Omar This is a public Q&A site, not your personal answering service. Just because you do not "need" answers doesn't mean others with a similar problem will not find them useful. – Chahk Dec 20 '11 at 19:14

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