iPhone 11 emulation done in QEMU

by 71bw on 6/12/2025, 3:04:59 PM with 33 comments

  • by gnabgib on 6/12/2025, 4:53:55 PM

    Discussion on upstream repo (356 points, 2022, 144 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30545425

    Related (mentions this repo): Emulating an iPhone in QEMU (268 points, 2 months ago, 64 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43592409

  • by jeswin on 6/13/2025, 1:00:19 AM

    This is the ultimate emulation hack bar none - congrats to everyone involved. This also bodes well for the hackintosh project. It's may no longer be a dead end (though miles away), and eventually we might even see efficient emulation as ARM PCs become generally available.

  • by msgodel on 6/12/2025, 4:41:14 PM

    Woah this sounds like it boots all the way to Springboard at least! That's pretty huge!

  • by hiimwavy on 6/13/2025, 8:36:16 AM

    This is incredibly impressive—booting an iPhone 11 all the way to Springboard in QEMU is no small feat. Kudos to the ChefKissInc team and everyone who’s contributed to getting this far!

  • by ewuhic on 6/12/2025, 4:43:32 PM

    Does it support trollstore with ability to decrypt IPAs?

  • by seany on 6/13/2025, 4:58:22 AM

    Seems like the important part would be emulating the security crap so it can be understood and bypassed. Where is this with that set of things? (being able to run things like banking/DMV emulated would be the killer feature)

  • by xvilka on 6/13/2025, 7:23:57 AM

    They should try to push it upstream, at least partially. Otherwise it's doomed to die like previous attempts.

  • by anthk on 6/12/2025, 6:25:33 PM

    How does Qemu m68k work for Classic Mac BTW?

  • by dd_xplore on 6/12/2025, 10:22:54 PM

    Is it emulating iOS? Or only running iOS binaries? Why does it specifically say iPhone 11?

  • by VMtest on 6/13/2025, 5:35:52 AM

    There is still no proper documentation for using qemu on windows host, the options and arguments etc. We have to google and the info and ideas that are scattered across the internet, or referencing the Linux equivalents of it to come up with a solution

  • by tifa2up on 6/13/2025, 10:50:18 AM

    Noob question: can you install iOS apps using this?

  • by startyz on 6/13/2025, 6:59:05 AM

    cool it is my favorite model of iphones.