A guide to installing Android on an iPhone

It may be a rare occurrence but believe it or not there are some iPhone users that look upon Android users with great envy. Whether it’s the use of widgets on homescreens, access to apps that would normally be blocked from the iPhone or just a genuine passion for Google; this small crowd has its reasons.

Fortunately, if you have an old iPhone (1^st or 2^nd generation) that is jailbroken and has the correct version of iOS installed you can enjoy some Android Gingerbread goodness on your old trusty device.

This method is still in Alpha and it is not meant to replace iOS as the functioing OS.

First of all your phone must be jailbroken and the method of jailbreaking used MUST be one of the following: -

• PwnageTool
• Redsn0w
• Blackra1n

Secondly, this only works with the following models: -

• iPhone 2G (1^ST gen)
• iPhone 3G (2^nd gen)
• iPod Touch 1G

Lastly, the version of iOS installed on your device MUST be any version between iOS 3.1.2 to 4.2.1.

If any of this differs on your model, this will not work.

It also helps if you are connected to a stable Wi-Fi hotspot as the guide will be downloading many big files. Once you are ready, follow these steps: -

1. Open Cydia and do a search for Bootlace, once found, install
2. Once installed, open Bootlace.  It will check if your phone is compatible (check the list above) and then patch the iOS kernel to allow it to install OpeniBoot. Follow all prompts and restart when asked
3. Once your phone has fully restarted, open Bootlace again and then open the OpeniBoot tab (second from the right at the bottom), hit install if you’re ready to continue
4. This process may take a short while, but once done hit the iDroid tab (next to the OpeniBoot tab) and hit install
5. Once installed touch the i icon in the top right hand corner, this will allow you to install the Multitouch and Wi-Fi drivers for Android
6. Once all this is done restart your phone. Once restarted, OpeniBoot will prompt you for which OS you wish to use (iOS or Android).

Congratulations, you now own a dual booting device! However, the Android installation cannot:

• Use the camera
• Utilise the GPU (no 3D or YouTube)
• Last on a full charge for 2 hours
• Use a 2G or 3G data connection
• Use the Android Market

However, the iDroid project are working on fully porting the OS onto the iPhone and are constantly working to allow later models the opportunity to be Androidised and making the port more stable and fully functional.

But you do have something cool to show to your friends. You can boot back into iOS anytime you want by restarting and selecting iOS when prompted.

(Credit to iDroid Project for the guide)