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iOS on QEMU

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11–20 of 106 posts

Re: iOS on QEMU

#11
post #8

There’s no graphics here, right? Will SpringBoard and friends start without a display?

From the linked blog post:

> No devices emulation: screen, touch, wifi, BT or anything else.

Re: iOS on QEMU

#14
post #11
post #8

There’s no graphics here, right? Will SpringBoard and friends start without a display?

From the linked blog post: > No devices emulation: screen, touch, wifi, BT or anything else.

Looks like there is some screen emulation: https://twitter.com/JonathanAfek/status/1350000894784495617

Re: iOS on QEMU

#15
post #9

This would be interesting to see, I'm guessing the implications are being able to build iOS projects without requiring a Mac at any stage of the development process.

You'd need to emulate macOS hardware, not iOS, to do that. In that sense, what you describe is already possible (running Xcode in a macOS VM on commodity hardware).

I did this exact think back in 2012 with a PhoneGap/Apache Cordova app. It had to use Xcode to run the app in the iOS Emulator. So I spun up a virtual machine on my Linux box. It worked extraordinarily well!

In the case of the poster you are replying to. Yes, Swift is open source and there are compilers for other platforms. The problem comes in with Apple's SDK and their proprietary libraries. Those are what are required to build an app that'll run on an iOS device. Those only run on macOS/OSX.

Re: iOS on QEMU

#16

This would be interesting to see, I'm guessing the implications are being able to build iOS projects without requiring a Mac at any stage of the development process.

Adobe AIR has done this for at least 10 years.

Re: iOS on QEMU

#18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to emulate macOS hardware, not iOS, to do that. In that sense, what you describe is already possible (running Xcode in a macOS VM on commodity hardware).

I did this exact think back in 2012 with a PhoneGap/Apache Cordova app. It had to use Xcode to run the app in the iOS Emulator. So I spun up a virtual machine on my Linux box. It worked extraordinarily well! In the case of the poster you are replying to. Yes, Swift is open source and there are compilers for other platforms. The problem comes in with Apple's SDK and their proprietary libraries. Those are what are requ…

These days, unfortunately, it is not possible. Well, you can virtualize MacOs, but you can not connect iOS device to it, nor you can run a virtual iOS device inside it.

Apple went out of its way to deliberately disable physical phones connecting to a virtual MacOS. Any other USB device can be connected, but not an iphone.

Re: iOS on QEMU

#19
post #5

> If you are passionate about iOS and kernel exploitation So is the main use-case to find bugs in iOS or are there other major use-cases I'm not thinking about? The only other use case I can think of is setting up a click-farm, or paid-review farm where you give positive reviews for apps for a small fee.

[deleted]

Re: iOS on QEMU

#20

WOW! That's insane. If made efficiently enough, you could emulate iOS on a non-iOS mobile device. That would be disruptive.

Could give the librem 5 or PinePhone a big boost. But it would not help with battery life.

I think the number of people who have a Librem phone but want to run iOS on it is basically zero.
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