An iPhone Can Run Android with the Help of a 3D-Printed Case

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Published 8 Jun 2016

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Android iPhone case

For anyone that has been interested in trying out Android, but doesn’t want to give up their iPhone, one designer and developer may have come up with a solution.

Nick Lee is an adventurous fellow, to say the least. He’s a designer and developer that works for Tendigi, a mobile design and development studio. This time he’s playing around with an iPhone, and he’s managed to get Google’s competing platform, Android, up and running on the device.

There’s plenty of work that goes into something like this, but for the folks out there that are interested in the finer details on how to get it to work, Lee went into great detail right here. The condensed version is that Lee made a 3D-printed case, put a single-board computer in it, with a battery, and then used the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) to get Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow running on an iPhone.

Android iPhone case2

The iPhone connects to the computer through USB, and the 3D-printed case has seen plenty of revisions down to its current state, which is about the size of a standard battery case. Except this case also features a microSD card slot, and ports for HDMI and USB. There’s also a 650mAh battery to power the computer.

The result, once the iPhone is slotted into the case and plugged in, is Android on an iPhone. Lee just has to launch the Tendigi app on the iPhone and there’s the Android user interface. Unfortunately the touch responsiveness isn’t fantastic, and there are some pretty bold black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, but otherwise it’s Android running on an iPhone.

Check out the video below to see it in action:

Would you use Android on an iPhone? Or do you prefer your manufacturers not be Apple?

[via The Verge; Tendigi]