Cycada (formerly known as Cider, and Chameleon before) is a compatibility layer that aims to allow applications designed for

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

to run unmodified on the

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

operating system. The method uses compile-time adaptation to run unmodified code with minimal implementation effort. The project was revealed in a conference paper by computer science researchers at Columbia University. The project enables iOS applications to adapt to Android's kernel and programming libraries. A video released shows that many applications work, including the iOS version of

Yelp Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in S ...

, Apple's

iBooks iBooks may refer to: * iBooks, the former name of Apple Books * ibooks Inc., a book and comics publishing company founded by Byron Preiss See also * iBook, a defunct series of laptops by Apple {{disambiguation ...

software and 3D benchmarks using

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a Language-independent specification, cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D computer graphics, 2D and 3D computer graphics, 3D vector graphics. The API is typic ...

. Consequent to the release of the white paper, hardware GPS support was added to the software. Unlike many other compatibility layers (such as

WINE Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

or Darling), Cycada works at the

kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learnin ...

level, as opposed to at

user space A modern computer operating system usually uses virtual memory to provide separate address spaces or regions of a single address space, called user space and kernel space. This separation primarily provides memory protection and hardware prote ...

.Andrus, Jeremy et. al. ``Cider: Native Execution of iOS Apps on Android." In ''Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems'' (ASPLOS 2014). ACM, 2014, p. 367-382.
/ref> Cycada is not a simple APK file, and modifies the entire Linux kernel. It is unknown whether the project will be released. The original name “Cider” was most likely a play on both

, another compatibility layer named after an

alcoholic drink Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

, and on how actual

cider Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the Fermented drink, fermented Apple juice, juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and Ireland. The United Kingdom has the world's highest ...

is made using

apples An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, making a pun on

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Since lead developer Jeremy Andrus left for a job on the Darwin kernel at

, the project has been headed by Jason Nieh. Work on the project has still continued following this related to graphics in 2017.

Similar projects

# In December of 2022, Internet user Martijn de Vos, also known as devos50 has reverse engineered this device to successfully create a

QEMU The Quick Emulator (QEMU) is a free and open-source emulator that uses dynamic binary translation to emulate a computer's processor; that is, it translates the emulated binary codes to an equivalent binary format which is executed by the mach ...

emulation of this device, running iPhone OS 1.0. # touchHLE is a compatibility layer (referred to as a “high-level emulator”) for Windows and macOS made by Andrea "hikari_no_yume" in early 2023. The emulator was only able to run one software,

Super Monkey Ball ''Super Monkey Ball'' is a series of Platformer, platform video games initially developed by Amusement Vision (now Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio) and published by Sega. The series debuted in 2001 with the arcade game ''Monkey Ball'', which was ported to ...

. She says that fans will have to "be patient" for anything else to emulate. It uses code translation along with CPU emulation when necessary, and specifically stated that she does not want to be compatible with 64 bit software. # ipasim is a compatibility layer that provides native execution for iOS apps to run on Windows based on code translations and WinObjC. # QEMU-t9080, also known as TruEmu is an iPhone 11 emulated in QEMU for the purpose of security research and cannot boot past the Apple Logo.

Notes

:1.

Cider Cider ( ) is an alcoholic beverage made from the Fermented drink, fermented Apple juice, juice of apples. Cider is widely available in the United Kingdom (particularly in the West Country) and Ireland. The United Kingdom has the world's highest ...

is an alcoholic drink made from

References

Compatibility layers Computing platforms Free system software Linux emulation software 2014 software {{mobile-software-stub