
Cider Project: Run iOS apps on Android - dnt404-1
http://engineering.columbia.edu/sync-columbia-engineering-team-first-run-ios-apps-android-platform
======
fidotron
“Users no longer need to be locked into one platform. Being able to write an
app once and run it anywhere has been a long-sought-after goal and a very hard
problem to solve.”

This is naive, stupid, or both. There never was a technical cause of lock in
(as indeed the Apportable people are not alone in demonstrating), it's purely
an artificial business construct with the surmountable technical hurdles being
very convenient.

It's well within Apple's capabilities to launch the media consumption parts of
iTunes on Android, like on Windows PCs, but it should be kind of telling that
they don't.

One of the lessons of my career so far is never underestimate the ability of
people to assume that problems are primarily technical in nature when actually
the real problem is something else. Technical excuses can often be used for
after the fact justification of management decisions.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
I actually thought it odd that they would cite iTunes as a feature that
Android users would _want_.

iTunes on Windows is one of the worst pieces of software by a major
company...ever. If I want to buy music or video I can do it through Amazon,
and I have _vastly_ more trust for Amazon's pricing structures. (Remember the
anti-trust suit that Apple lost? The one that found them guilty of
artificially keeping eBook prices high? And now we have Amazon fighting with
another publisher to get them to agree to lower eBook prices...)

~~~
al2o3cr
Yes, you should _definitely_ trust the pricing of the company that started out
the ebook business selling best-sellers for less than they had to pay in
royalties to publishers. I mean, it couldn't _possibly_ have been an attempt
to drive competitors out of the space...

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Umm...competitors? [Citation Needed]

What I remember is that Amazon _created_ the e-book space, for all intents and
purposes.

And the reason they undercut the royalty price was to create that market.
People didn't want to spend $20 or more to buy an electronic copy of a book
they could buy for less in physical form. People aren't stupid: If they aren't
getting a physical item they can then hand to their friends and/or sell, then
what they're getting has less value.

Heck, I still get annoyed by crazy-high eBook prices. An eBook should
absolutely ALWAYS cost less than the physical copy. If there are 500 copies
available used for $0.01 on Amazon, then it shouldn't be more than about $5
(paying a bit for the convenience of having a digital copy -- those $0.01
copies typically add ~$4 in shipping costs), and yet you can find $8-10 price
on a Kindle edition. [1]

Amazon has a very strong customer focus. [2] That results in lower prices. It
also makes it harder for competition, yes, but that "customer obsession" has
become core to the culture at Amazon.

[1] First one I found: [http://www.amazon.com/Against-All-Enemies-Tom-Clancy-
ebook/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Against-All-Enemies-Tom-Clancy-
ebook/dp/B004XJIWAE) \-- it turns out many of the $.01 books are only $6 on
Kindle, which is better than I thought, but it wasn't hard to find one greater
than $8.

[2] See the first "leadership principle" on this page:
[http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-
Homepage/b?ie=UTF8&node...](http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-
Homepage/b?ie=UTF8&node=239365011)

------
pavlov
_... we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach, avoiding
the difficult and complex reimplementation effort of Wine._

Cool, but it's against Apple's EULA to run the iOS binaries on non-Apple
hardware, so unfortunately this project suffers from the same problem as
emulators that require you to acquire the original firmware somehow.

~~~
nokiaman
> but it's against Apple's EULA

This is _Hacker_ News, right?

~~~
henderson101
I always read it as "Hacker" in the traditional sense of the term, not the
alarmist media "OMG!!H4qq0r" sense of the word. Hacking used to simply mean
programming.

~~~
CalRobert
"Hacking used to simply mean programming"

Did it though? I thought it referred to finding creative solutions to problems
that often incorporated programming. Was anyone really considered to be
hacking if they were writing tic tac toe in Basic?

~~~
gregrata
Of course. If you were the first to write tic tac toe in basic on the VIC-20,
in the early 80's (or on something else in the 50's,etc)

------
nokiaman
Can Apple can stop the research team releasing the source code?

The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the
public have the right to see all work related to the project?

I ask because the lead researcher, Jeremy Andrus, is now employed by Apple and
wrote this on the YouTube video:

 _" I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this
project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but
I won't be involved from here on out.﻿"_

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

[http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-
asplos2014-cider.p...](http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/files/wpid-
asplos2014-cider.pdf)

~~~
elehack
> The research project was partly funded by NSF grants, so does that mean the
> public have the right to see all work related to the project?

For better or worse, no. NSF funding brings requirements for data sharing, but
does not automatically trigger code availability.

------
downandout
Here's a comment from this project's creator on the demo video
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg)):

 _I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this
project. The team at Columbia will probably be doing some follow up work, but
I won 't be involved from here on out.﻿_

So basically Apple has tried to kill or at least slow down the release of this
to the public (he's obviously talented, I'm just saying that killing progress
on this project likely factored somewhere into the hiring decision).

~~~
Someone1234
Or maybe, just maybe, someone who has spent this much time developing a VM for
Apple's software architecture has a great skillset and would be a welcome
addition to one of Apple's teams.

The same exact thing happened to the guy behind ReactOS (an Open Source
Windows NT replacement). The guy became /so/ familiar with Windows that he
eventually got a job on the actual Windows Kernel team.

~~~
kristopolous
I don't get why hackers want to work at such large companies. If someone has
over about 50 employees or about 10 million backing, I don't see what's
interesting about it.

edit (due to the downvotes): Sorry, this was an honest question. I've been
working for about 15 years and have always been really put off by the
institutional structure of large companies ... the constitution of them just
doesn't work for the kind of green-field I'm (and I thought most hackers) are
looking for.

I wasn't trying to be negative or deleterious --- I really didn't get it.

~~~
avalaunch
Bigger paycheck, better benefits, better job security, less and more
predictable hours, access to amazing tech.

~~~
kristopolous
Oh yes, what I call the "family argument" (work rules are different if you
have a spouse and kid). I always forget about that one. Makes perfect sense.
Sorry about that - it was pretty obvious.

~~~
mahyarm
You also have the time budget to do things correctly, unlike start ups.

~~~
zem
that was definitely one of my motivations for joining a large company.

~~~
kristopolous
I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but does that honestly come through?

I routinely turn down offers from the big players because I imagine once I'm
in, it's going to be like the movie Brazil.

I've worked for three large companies as a non-contractor - and I mean maybe I
just didn't have the right title but I found the following (in all three):

* I was prohibited from working on broken things that I was capable of fixing but I wasn't assigned to - even if nobody else was addressing them ... Almost as if there's some internal taxonomy model which strictly defines my role as _X and only X_. Having things lay broken is so frustrating to me.

* Pointing out that projects are on a steady course for derailment and failure was discouraged. Recommending any fix whatsoever was completely a prohibitive.

* Questions like "what does the client want?" or "Can I ask the client a question" always came back with things like "That's not your job".

* Proposals to big payoffs for small LOEs that would substantially improve the project always got shot down. Probably because the "from" field of the email was wrong.

* Creativity, innovation, and working on big new problems was incredibly discouraged. The concept that I have more than just one ability appears either cognitively impossible or structurally incompatible.

I got a nice paycheck - the work was relatively stable and secure, and
everything was running smoothly --- but I was completely wasting years of my
life.

On the contrary, all the small companies I've worked for have been the exact
opposite. It's not that I necessary _want_ to do contract negotiations and SOW
writeups, but it gives clarity and purpose that I was just unable to get from
the larger firms.

I mean again, maybe it's because my resume doesn't say "PhD, Stanford" on it -
I don't know.

Has your experience been dramatically different?

~~~
freehunter
>I was prohibited from working on broken things that I was capable of fixing
but I wasn't assigned to - even if nobody else was addressing them

Coming from the other side, that's frustrating to me too. I was working with a
broken tool that the vendor wanted $200,000 to fix. I hacked together a shell
script over the course of a few weeks that eased my pain, but required I work
in a Linux virtual machine. I would have loved to port it to something that
works on Windows like Python, but it was just glue over awk and sed and trim,
and I have no idea how to replace those in any other language.

But you know who did have that knowledge? Our resident programmer. But every
time I brought it up to the boss that he should work on it and get it running
on Windows, the answer was "he has more important things to do, and if he has
time to work on your side project, he needs more work to do". Literally. And
in the next breath, the boss said "we need that script to follow our
programming practices" aka Windows and Java. I'm not a damn programmer! But we
do have one on the team!

~~~
mahyarm
Don't bring it up to the boss, he was probably trying protect his 'human
resource turf' to meet his goals. He is evaluated on the performance &
management of his team and your request was probably against that evaluation.
Try talking to the programmer directly or maybe his boss and bring it up in a
'for the entire company' way.

------
zbowling
> "a new system that can run iOS apps on an Android device for the first time"

We at Apportable (YC W2011) have been doing that for 3 + years in a much for
commercially viable way. We strive for source compatibility and are not
building an emulator that requires taking libraries from an iOS device.

~~~
nokiaman
Your way requires the developer to use Apportable to port an iOS app to
Android. If the developer has agreed with Apple to not port the app to
Android, it will never be available.

Their way gives the power to the user. The user copies across iOS app binary
and system libraries and it's done.

Basically, your way empowers the developer, their way empowers the user.

You need to be commercially viable because your investors demand it. The price
you charge developers may prevent some developers from porting their app.

They don't need to be commercially viable because they're a research project.
If they release their source code, the community of hackers will develop a
free and easy to install system to allow users to run any iOS app on Android.

~~~
peapicker
"The user copies across iOS app binary and system libraries and it's done."

So, the user gets to violate the Apple copyrights. _sigh_

~~~
gue5t
I'll violate Apple copyrights until the day I die. Copyright is protectionist,
monopolist bullshit, and it gets in the way of empowering users--and
"empowering users" is the only ethical purpose of technological development.
Anything else will merely work to reinforce existing imbalanced power
structures.

Additionally, copyright doesn't disallow you from copying a file from one
device you own to another. Copyright is about the distribution of ideas
between people, not about arrangements of bits.

~~~
72deluxe
I'm curious: Would you have the same stance if you released some (non-free)
software or a non-free hardware product and it was really successful? Would
you want people to ignore the copyright then? Would you be happy for it to
show up entirely cloned in the far East?

People seem to have this disgust of Copyright / paying for music / paying for
films / paying for software and justify it with vague arguments about "fat
cats" and "sticking it to the man" but then would obviously object to people
taking their own stuff....

~~~
gue5t
Piracy and dismissal of copyright isn't an egalitarian act of rebellion; it's
a humanist recognition of the right of any person to freely engage with the
world around them. I have enough material wealth, and if I make something
that's actually useful it would be great to see people building versions of it
that better suit their specific needs.

That said, it is fun to say "fuck the man", and often doing the right thing
coincides with it for a while. Rhetoric like that can be a good way to get
some people out of their comfort zones on topics like copyright, and then more
nuanced analysis can lead to the realization of the importance of building
sustainable, respectful means of production. DRM, Copyright, etc. are net
losses to society. They may be the only way 100mm-dollar-budget movies can
exist, but I think it's better to have a culture where the people have
democratic control over the objects of their culture instead of being at the
mercy of content conglomerates, cease-and-desist letters for fan works, and
geographic youtube restrictions.

~~~
72deluxe
If I had some copyright on software that I sold, would you be happy copying
and dismissing my copyright then?

You may say that copyright is a loss to society, but as an individual that is
part of the society, I would be losing out from your infringement of my
copyright. That would mean that my individual loss would equate to a loss
within that society.

Or am I not part of society? Does my copyright mean nothing to you?

------
piyush_soni
_there are all kinds of cool iOS apps that they cannot run, like iTunes and
iMessage_

Really? iTunes is cool? I'm yet to see someone who likes it, including my
friends who are big time iOS fans.

~~~
bigdubs
I doubt they mean iTunes the desktop application; the "music" player on iOS is
called "Music.app".

As far as iTunes as a main music library manager; it's very, very good (though
iTunes 12 has soured me on it a bit).

On <insert name of popular private torrent tracker>, which is known it's users
having tens of thousands of FLAC file libraries, iTunes still rates pretty
decently among people running OS X.

------
United857
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg)

Besides the legal obstacles to making this commerically viable, there are
technical ones too:

 _Unfortunately this technology is quite a bit more complicated than a simple
.apk download - it involves system-wide changes including a modified Linux
kernel._

------
erbo
There was a similar project a couple of years ago, where someone got iOS apps
running on a BlackBerry Playbook: [http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-
apps-running-blackb...](http://crackberry.com/developer-gets-ios-apps-running-
blackberry-real)

At the time, I said that RIMM/BlackBerry should do whatever they could to
acquire this technology, enhance it, and bundle it with BB10. Combined with
BB10's already-demonstrated capability to run Android apps, it could have
meant "the best of all possible worlds" for BB owners...the ability to run
apps from the two most popular competing platforms, on a platform that's
_much_ more secure and higher-performing.

------
delinka
"...we reused existing iOS frameworks and libraries in our approach..."

Ah. Awesome work, but not commercially viable. :(

------
dljsjr
For a minute I thought this was announcing that Cider[1] now supports iOS ->
Android (Cider is currently existing tech used for porting Windows games to OS
X, based on Cedega/Wine).

[1]: [https://www.transgaming.com/cider](https://www.transgaming.com/cider)

~~~
ewzimm
Transgaming did add iOS and Android support a few months ago!

[https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-
new-l...](https://www.transgaming.com/news/transgaming-announces-new-
licensing-model-expansion-its-leading-games-technology-mobile-platfor)

------
yalogin
Apps on iOS are encrypted and they say they use some modified script from a
jailbreak to decrypt the apps. So for this to work, they need a jailbroken
device to decrypt the apps first. So not future proof as well.

~~~
bennyg
They're only encrypted when they go to the App Store. You can make a .ipa file
and install it on your own/jailbroken devices without it ever being encrypted.
It's extremely easy to decompile it and get variable names, string values and
stack traces too.

------
_mayo
This is pretty cool. There's a demo of it running on a Nexus 7[0]. \-- [0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaple0Ec1Dg)

~~~
danabramov
“I have started a job with Apple, and will not be continuing work on this
project.”

------
Relys
_Sigh_ I saw this over a year ago and still no release???

------
padraic7a
So what are the chances that this will get released in some sort of end-user
friendly format? If the original developers don't do it will others be able to
apply the ideas now that they are proven to work?

------
AndrewKemendo
Seems way more commercially focused than is reasonable given that it is NSF
funded, especially given the fact that there is nothing technically
insurmountable that locks users into one eco-system vs the other.

------
christina_b
There were a couple of attempts at similar stuff before, I was working on a
similar thing (called Magenta) but I kind of lost motivation a long time ago.

------
darkstar999
Looks like they recently changed the name to Cycada.

~~~
Kallynx
Yes they did, look at this
[http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/](http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cycada/)

------
LeicaLatte
The pirates say their thanks.

------
jaoued
Awesome! We, at MyAppConverter are going beyond iOS to Android by also
tackling the other mobile dev platforms. Besides, no runtime, no SDK to
download. Our solution is based on Semantic Driven Code Transformation and
Model Driven Engineering. We are currently doing private beta and will be
coming out soon. Cheers.

~~~
khalilup
Big up to myappconverter, There is documentation for your app

~~~
jaoued
Its actually not an app but a code conversion service. Initially the service
has been proposed as a full cloud based service but we are also working to
release a code conversion plug-in for Xcode and ADT. Instead of uploading his
code, the developer will perform the conversion within his preferred IDE.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcFG_XbRrb0. Full doc will be available soon on gh.

~~~
yacine
Cheers!

