Students from Columbia’s University’s Department of Computer Science have developed Cider, a neat mobile OS compatibility architecture that lets them run any iOS application on an Android device. The six students involved with the project demoed Cider on a Nexus 7 (2012), which is able to run all sorts of iOS applications right alongside Android apps.
The project is not yet finished and the performance isn’t as smooth as expected, but things could certainly improve in the future. For example, iOS apps requiring access to certain hardware resources, including GPS, cameras, cell phone radio, Bluetooth and other features will fail to run properly since Cider doesn’t offer such support yet, The Next Web reports.
However, assuming the project evolves into a more complex solution of running native iOS apps on Android devices, Cider could help long-time iOS users make the switch to Android – or use Android devices in addition to iPhones and iPads – easier than before, as there would be a way to access content already purchased from iTunes, especially apps, on an Android device.
Cider isn’t yet available to other mobile device users yet, and it’s not clear yet whether it’ll evolve into a commercial product in the future.
Running Android apps on an iOS device isn’t yet a possibility, or at least the Cider team has not demoed such a side of the project yet, likely because of the nature of these two mobile operating systems.
The Cider demo video, showing iOS apps running next to Android apps on the same device, follows below.
