Guide to Install Android on iPhone 2G

25 April 2010 by Vinay 22 Comments

We had heard some time ago … Once the Google Android platform is open source, it would be hard to see it run on the iPhone. And the famous iPhone hacker known as planetbeing succeed. Earlier last week we told you about first successful porting of Android over iPhone 2G [Check here], since then we are getting too many e-mails, twitter mentions for a noob proof guide to install Android on iPhone 2G. I tried to make this post / guide as user friendly as possible, but if you still have any doubt / problem feel free to post a comment below.

First of all thanks to planetbeing for his hard work, and if you guys are happy with his work please donate support him.

Warning / Notes :

Only iPhone 2G is supported at the moment, don’t try this for iPhone 3G/3GS and iPod touch family.
Do it at your own risk, iDroid is in Alpha stage and if your device /explode/ during experiment we are not responsible.
Read the whole post 2-3 times before installing Android on your iPhone.

Prerequisite :

iPhone 2G already jailbroken.
Ubuntu Live CD / Ubuntu installed on PC (Ubuntu 9.10 latest version)
WiFi connection

Stage One :

1) Download iDroid package [Download here]

Due to licensing restrictions, these images do not include firmware files required for WiFi and the touch screen to function. For adding Touch screen support you need zephyr_main.bin, zephyr_aspeed.bin and for adding WiFi support you need sd8686_helper.bin, sd8686.bin You’ll need to obtain these files and add them into the android.img.gz and system.img images yourself.

If you are geek enough then check iPhoneWiKi [Click here] and do it your self. If you want my patched images ping me on my twitter iHackinjosh

2) Extract iDroid package to the desktop using 7zip [Download here]. You will need to extract the tar.gz which turns it into a .tar. Extract it again and .tar turns in to a folder.

3) SSH to you phone and transfer the contents of “Prebuilt” to the /private/var directry on your iPhone using WinSCP / Cyberduck . If you are unfamiliar with SSH transfers the follow our previous guide here.

Stage Two : Install Open iBoot

Boot up an Ubuntu LIVE CD. Make sure you have libusb-1.0-0 installed. If not then just find and install it using the System – Admin – Package Manager tool.

All commands below are run from your Linux computer, from within the iDroid > utils directory so copy “loadibec” “openiboot.img3” and “oibc” to your home folder in Linux.

Put your iPhone into Recovery Mode doing the following instructions.

Turn the device completely off and disconnect it from cable/dock.
Hold down the home button.
While holding down the home button connect to a computer with a cable (easiest) or dock.
Keep holding down the home button until you see a connect-to-iTunes screen You are now in recovery mode.

Run sudo ./loadibec openiboot.img3
The openiboot menu should now be displayed on your phone.
Press the button on the top of your phone to select the openiboot console, then press the home button.
Run sudo ./oibc. Your terminal should now show the same text that’s displayed on your phone’s screen.
Type install.
Once done, type reboot
The phone should boot back into openiboot. Again select the console option, but this time hold down the home button for 2+ seconds. This will boot Android.

Stage Three : Booting / Switching Android or iPhone OS

Reboot your phone to get back to the openiboot menu.
Press the Lock button to highlight the Console option.
Press and hold the Home button for 2 to 3 seconds. This will boot Android.
Enjoy!

Note: If you messed up your device after installing openiboot, you need to enter DFU mode and Restore using iTunes.

Stay tuned with us for your daily dose of iDevice news, you can follow us on twitter via @ihackinjosh You can also subscribe to our daily free e-mail news letter and keep your self updated with the latest of iDevice community.

Random Posts

22 Comments »

Mohammad Saed said:

Greate job
I’ll try it.

# 25 April 2010 at 12:43 pm

Anmol Singh said:

Great guide.

# 25 April 2010 at 12:46 pm

neFos said:

Waiting for 3G

# 25 April 2010 at 1:19 pm

smanettone said:

This guide works for iPhone 3G also?

# 25 April 2010 at 2:04 pm

Cybex said:

Awesome, this guide worked perfectly… I just needed to install libreadline5 also to get oibc to work.

# 25 April 2010 at 2:22 pm

maxf said:

Actually it works, but after some reboots it damaged the system partition(fsck on startup of iPhone OS -> failed -> it’ll switch off itsself). Had to do a full restore…

# 25 April 2010 at 2:34 pm

Steve said:

I did it all and it worked, Wifi on Android connects but can’t browse the net, and now my 2G also connects but can’t connect to anything, Browser, Cydia, Mail, iPtt etc …

What the hell is going on here ?

# 25 April 2010 at 4:58 pm

Mohsen Mehrvarz said:

That is amazing.

# 25 April 2010 at 5:22 pm

mibaksh said:

@Steve, set you DNS in Android to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

Press the home button (middle of phone screen) to access Advanced Options in Wifi.

And thanks ihackinjosh

# 26 April 2010 at 1:20 pm

Ahmed Ali Shah said:

I did it, but there is one problem im facing, that is while running the android, how to restart the iphone? there is no option in android to restart or shut off. Forceable restart is damaging the startup files of open iboot. Any one has any idea to deal with this?

# 26 April 2010 at 4:07 pm

manno said:

Greate job man I’ll try it.

# 26 April 2010 at 6:39 pm

manno said:

nice work…!

# 26 April 2010 at 7:44 pm

BranBrow said:

After a bit of trouble got Android to load but no response from the touchscreen. Before I dump and build my own image files did miss something?

# 27 April 2010 at 7:57 am

Mohsen Mehrvarz said:

that was amazing, I enjoy that.

# 27 April 2010 at 2:51 pm

Orcun said:

Same question…..

Ahmed Ali Shah said:

I did it, but there is one problem im facing, that is while running the android, how to restart the iphone? there is no option in android to restart or shut off. Forceable restart is damaging the startup files of open iboot. Any one has any idea to deal with this?

# 27 April 2010 at 8:43 pm

Ala' Assaf said:

Great,,
What are the risks?????????????

# 28 April 2010 at 9:19 pm

Divyangriziya said:

Hey vinay i dont knw anything about Ubuntu
wht is it nd how to get this things done…..i m reakky confusd….
As u stated above can u just give me like a zip download for all dis above images…lab lab la
u mantind above…..

# 29 April 2010 at 5:35 pm

xer0_ said:

I have this running on my phone. Word of advice that he has on here. Dont SSH into your device using WinSCP. For some reason IT DOES NOT TRANSFER THE FULL FILES YOU NEED. I used iphonebrowser and it worked perfectly

# 29 April 2010 at 8:49 pm

xer0_ said:

@mibaksh i set my DNS to those numbers but for some reason still no go on data transfers from the android to the interwebz. iphone works fine still.

# 29 April 2010 at 9:28 pm

abraham said:

hi i did the full android os in my phone just touch panel wont work i cant touch icons in android os can some one plz help A_lucio@comcast.net

# 8 May 2010 at 9:23 am

Jdills1196 said:

I will try this on iPod touch 2G, will post results.

# 10 May 2010 at 12:54 am

jazz said:

i dont know if this is gonna be simple for me….i think i will need to install ubuntu on my dino age system….some program which can help me install smoothly without installing ubuntu or red hat

# 3 June 2010 at 10:40 pm