Cycada

Cycada (formerly known as Cider) is a compatibility layer that was in development at to allow iOS apps to run on Android. This was achieved via kernel modification and patches to run XNU code.

Description
Unlike the other iOS emulation projects of the timeframe, Cycada has progressed to a working condition, though with significant performance as of 2014 and legal issues as of 2017. The project claims to convert iOS binaries to be able to run on an Android device. However, on the presentation, their stated goal is to develop a virtual machine. The published papers refer to a device running the software as a “Cider Android” even though the original Android device is otherwise unchanged.

Cider / Cycada was developed by Jeremy Andrus, Alexander Van't Hof, Naser AlDuaij, Christoffer Dall, Nicolas Viennot, and. However, Andrus left the project to become a kernel engineering manager at Apple, leaving Nieh as the project lead at the university department. Little progress has been seen of the project since 2014 and the source code has yet to be released. The software is considered unfinished while existing iOS libraries and frameworks were also used, due to the lack of resources to reverse engineer them.

Out of 69 tested apps, 19 apps fully work, 10 work with minor bugs that do not affect functionality, 15 have major errors that affect functionality, and 27 crash, and the platform ran iOS 5.1, however had a beta of iOS 6.

The creators of Cycada expressed no interest in releasing it as of 2022, and say that Cycada can be recreated via the three papers provided, and with enough effort and necessary engineering skills. Only one re-creation of the software is known to exist, developed by the creator of the Darling project, who did not release it due to copyright issues and considered it lost media as of 2022.

Potential

 * Cycada could theoretically allow Windows 11's to run iOS apps, though it would entail the added performance hit of emulation within another emulator. This could also allow the running of legacy 32-bit apps on a device running iOS 10 or older in emulation. However, unless Apple's iOS libraries and frameworks can be reverse engineered, this would not be legally possible on any device not sold by Apple.
 * CPU improvements may allow Cycada to run at improved speeds, though this has yet to be confirmed in practice.