Hacker Gets macOS Running on a Jailbroken iPhone

Imagine being able to run macOS on your iPhone or iPad – a pipe dream for many users who have been told by Apple that it's never going to happen. However, one talented hacker has managed to get things working – at least partially. Duy Tran (@khanhduytran0), known for their contributions to the jailbreak community and various iPhone hack projects, shared a stunning photograph on social media platform 𝕏 (formerly Twitter) over the weekend that appears to show a notched iPhone running macOS.

The photo shows two familiar applications – Activity Monitor and Xcode – running on the device in question. But don't just take Tran's word for it – a separate image shown is an actual screenshot, rather than just a camera image. This level of detail suggests that the hack is more than just a novelty; it's a genuine breakthrough.

Tran has taken to /r/jailbreak on Monday to share more information about this incredible achievement. They mentioned help from zhuowei and explained how this originated from "exploring ways to provide Metal acceleration." For those unfamiliar with the terms, Metal is a low-level API used for rendering graphics, which would be essential for running macOS on an iPhone.

In a follow-up post, Tran revealed that they spent a week trying to make M1 driver work, but ended up causing more problems than solutions. However, they discovered an interesting workaround using the iOS simulator – streaming Metal via XPC (XPC stands for eXtensible Platform Interface) – which allowed them to get things working in just two days.

Tran's achievement is nothing short of remarkable, especially considering that they managed to boot macOS 13.4 natively on their iPhone XS Max running iOS 16.5. The keyboard and mouse input are currently done via VNC (Virtual Network Computing), which might seem like a minor drawback but shows the incredible potential of jailbreaks beyond just customizations.

Tran's project has been shared on GitHub, where they've published a work-in-progress repository for those interested to check out. However, Tran warns that this is highly technical and would be difficult for most users to utilize yet.

As the project progresses, it will be fascinating to see how Tran researches further and what breakthroughs can be expected. For now, it appears to be an early alpha version of their work, but one thing is certain – this is a game-changer for those who have been dreaming of running macOS on their iPhone or iPad.