Here’s proof that macOS can run on an iPhone – but don’t get too excited

Since Macs have obtained Apple silicon fleas, Apple fans have wondered about the feasibility of the execution of macos on mobile devices, in particular the ipads, because the latest models are powered by the same chips inside the Mac. Interestingly, a developer has now shown that this is indeed possible.

Duy Tran, a developer specializing in the hacking of Apple devices, shared the details of his impressive work on Reddit. After many research and tests, he understood how to execute essential parts of macOS on an iPhone, although there are many limits.

Execution of macOS parts on the iPhone

He started by installing Windowserver, a critical macos process responsible for rendering graphic elements on the screen, such as windows, icons and visual effects. Essentially, each application carried out on macOS needs Windowserver, so being able to execute it on iPhone is the first and probably the largest step towards the execution of Mac applications on iPhones and iPads.

But there was still a lot to do. Most applications also require graphical acceleration to work, and it’s a little more complicated because MacOS lacks pilots for iPhone fleas. What Tran has done is to use metal pilots from the iPhone simulator as a bypass solution. For those unknown, iPhone Simulator is part of Xcode and allows developers to test iOS applications on the Mac.

With the support of basic graphics and the user interface, the developer was able to execute a modified version of MacOS 13.4 with some essential system components, such as Windowserver, Finder and The Dock, on its iPhone. To his surprise (and ours), it worked. He even showed an image of Xcode 15 working on the iPhone.

So what is the catch? Does this mean that we will finally have macos for iPhones and iPads? Well, not exactly.

Reddit / Duy Tran

It is always a complicated and rather limited process

First, this is not possible on an ordinary iPhone or iPad in its default. The entire process requires a jailbreaky device, and the problem is that there is no jailbreak tool available for the latest devices and iOS versions. For example, Tran used an old iPhone XS max running iOS 16.5.

At the same time, there are still a lot of things that do not work properly. Piracy does not even support tactile inputs, which requires that the developer uses a physical keyboard and a remote connected mouse. Although the developer acknowledges that it would work much better on an iPad M1, for example, these iPads cannot be jailbreak on iPados 18 (Ni iPados 26).

In other words, we are still far from seeing an iPad execute the full version of MacOS, but it is always pleasant to see this project as proof of concept which, with the right adjustments, these devices can execute an office operating system. But with the ipados more and more macOS – as well as rumors of a MacBook running an iPhone chip – maybe this will no longer be necessary.

For those who are quite curious, the source code of the project to execute macOS on an iPhone or iPad Jailbreaké is available on Github.