

Cider: Native Execution of iOS Apps on Android - jonathansizz
http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cider/

======
biased2342
Site is down.

Demo Video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg)

Paper Mirrors:

[http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf)

[http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-
asplos2014.pdf](http://jeremya.com/files/pub/2014/03/cider-asplos2014.pdf)

[http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf](http://alexvh.com/publications/asplos2014_cider.pdf)

[http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-
asplos2014.pd...](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~alduaij/pubs/cider-
asplos2014.pdf)

------
saarons
I've taken a few classes with some of the authors of this project and they are
all amazingly talented. I remember Alex gave a presentation about a year ago
on this and he mentioned how hard it was for them to wedge C++ into the Linux
kernel just so they could get I/O Kit to work. It was also awesome to see the
iOS Stocks app running on a Nexus 7. From what I saw it worked pretty well and
aside from the uncanniness of the whole experience, it was pretty amazing to
see a fully-working demo. Keep up the good work guys.

------
mmastrac
Cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4w8_HOuitMJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cider/&hl=en&gl=ca&strip=1)

and the paper:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRS...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mfQeoRSB_7QJ:systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-
asplos2014-cider.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

EDIT: Here's a vacuumed Scribd link to another PDF version of the paper
([http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/pubs/asplos2014_cider.pdf))
that hopefully won't go down:

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/223946296/Untitled?secret_password=LHTdGCzJXkQTNZE87U3Y#full)

~~~
mdaniel
I guess the lesson here is that one shouldn't do something so awesome that
one's hosting company can't withstand the HN (and likely Reddit) onslaught :-)

~~~
egil
Maybe the Ivy League universities should set up a distributed cdn so they can
share the load when the next amazing paper hits the net :)

------
zmmmmm
As an academic work this would fairly clearly fall under a fair use defense,
but I wonder how the recent Oracle / Java copyright API decision would affect
any potential further development / distribution / commercialization of
something like this. It seems at very least it would have a huge chilling
effect on anybody who might otherwise have thought to attempt it.

~~~
filmgirlcw
Even without the Oracle ruling, any attempt to commercialize something like
this would get shutdown because of how it decrypts IPA files. Not to mention
Apple's terms of service are very clear that iOS apps cannot be distributed
outside of the App Store (the enterprise deployment "store" option being the
one exception, and companies pay for that privilege and have to comply with
specific guidelines around that).

~~~
comex
It's not just the apps themselves. In its current state, the program in the
paper replaces only the kernel interface and some user libraries (OpenGL); all
the rest of the core Apple frameworks are copied from iOS. In theory, a Wine-
like project could attempt to reimplement all of these frameworks, which is
where the Oracle ruling comes in...

~~~
erichocean
_> In theory, a Wine-like project could attempt to reimplement all of these
frameworks_

You mean like the Google Ventures-backed Apportable[0]? It's already delivered
3 of the top 10 games on Android, and I'm currently using it to port a
"normal" social network app from iOS to Android (using the development version
which re-implements Core Animation on top of OpenGL ES 2).

[0] [http://www.apportable.com/](http://www.apportable.com/)

~~~
josephlord
And getting back to the Oracle ruling I think the fair-use defence for
something like this aimed at a compatible implementation would be stronger
than Google's because they were trying to fork the platform and avoid the
available Java licensing offers.

------
knocknock
Strange choice for a name, considering this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming#Cider)

edit: comex beat me to it.

------
0x0
That's pretty insane.

I wonder if this will open the floodgates for ios piracy hosted on android.

Could you buy a cheap noname android tablet and install a pirated full ios OS
environment + apps?

A hassle-free, always-jailbreakable "hackintosh" of ios that is cheaper than
the original could a disruptive thing.

~~~
filmgirlcw
I doubt it. The jailbreak/decryption technique they used to get the IPA files
was for iOS 5.1 on a 3GS. There are undoubtedly newer techniques, but actually
maintaining and grabbing app files is non-trivial. And any centralized
repository is instantly targeted, so you have a seedy app underground of stuff
that probably isn't even current.

Then you have the fact that there is 40% overhead on Android to replicate the
iOS experience. And the fact that the bluetooth and GPS components won't work.

So do you really think people will buy cheap tablets, spend time installing
some hack to run older apps and then get subpar performance, just so they can
have access to ios apps? Won't happen. A small sector of users might be
willing to do this, but definitely not enough to disrupt anything.

I mean, this is considerably more complex than a hackintosh and we all saw how
those projects just totally destroyed Apple's Mac sales. Oh, wait...

~~~
maguay
If it's anything like the hackintosh market, this could _help_ iOS device
sales if people tried and liked the iOS apps they could get on Android. Plenty
of us who had a hackintosh (myself only in a virtual machine, but still) ended
up switching to the Mac after trying out OS X that way.

------
jonathansizz
Sorry about the inoperative server; many outlets have picked up on this over
the last several hours, but I thought that a link to the original source would
be most appropriate.

Hopefully, tomorrow morning someone will enter the server room, remove the
melted plastic, and replace the previous server with a new one..

------
tluyben2
This is amazing work. As someone who implemented a significant part of the iOS
API on top of Android, I can say it's not trivial :) Disclaimer: we created an
Apportable competitor for Xamarin based projects which will see the light this
week.

------
shna
I am more interested in people who did this than what they have achieved. The
difference in capability of me and them is like distance between planets. How
one can become such talented!

------
weixiyen
The opengl looked quite smooth but the UI layer looked very slow and laggy. Is
there a reason for this?

~~~
jasonwocky
Much of OpenGL is implemented in hardware rather than software, and that
benchmark is probably pretty close to pure OpenGL. There wouldn't be much
emulation to do.

------
userbinator
This is particularly amusing in light of the fact that there are tons of
Chinese clones of the iPhone that run (often iOS-skinned) Android, e.g. the
Goophone/Zophone i5. Those would make great hardware to use with this.

------
knodi
Amazing! I can imagine a lot of work went into create the diplomats. Can't
wait to see how it unfolds... when the site comes back up.

------
mlady
very cool proof of concept. adds a new, interesting dimension to multi-
platform mobile development solutions. definitely noticeable lag, so you're
not fooling anyone just yet with its native-ness.

how are apps loaded? Individually installed via adb? do you have access to the
iTunes store on Android?

~~~
0x0
They seemed to perform decryption of app store apps on a jailbroken iphone
first.

------
moeedm
I wonder which company will hire them first ...

Edit: Great name.

~~~
ianlevesque
Except that Cider is already the name of a porting tool
[http://transgaming.com/cider](http://transgaming.com/cider)

------
Lidador
columbia.edu servers failing to support the extra traffic.

~~~
krilnon
You're right, although it is systems.cs.columbia.edu specifically, so it's
just a group within a department. If they're anything like my old research
groups, the web server is just an old box or a Xen VM that's about to be
retired, since people mostly aren't hammering the server daily.

------
comex
Cider, a platform for native execution of X apps on Y? That isn't confusing at
all...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransGaming_Technologies#Cider)

~~~
mdaniel
I feel your pain:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7742201)
although it is plausible the Cider project was named that as a nod to
TransGaming.

