Can This Be Real: RIM's PlayBook Running iOS Apps? (Video)

The news for RIM has been pretty grim lately, but recently one enterprising fellow has demonstrated that RIM's PlayBook can be made, with some hacking, to run iOS apps, such as Monkey Ball below:

AppleInsider reported that the hacker known as:

"User "businesscat2000" took credit on the CrackBerry.com forums for a video uploaded to YouTube showcasing the concept, as noted by MacNN.

When questioned about the authenticity of the video, the developer claimed to have written a loader to perform the task. According to the poster, the ABI in iOS is "pretty darn close" to QNX's ABI.

"I don't load any frameworks - all imports are built into the loader statically. Makes it much easier to debug and deploy," said "businesscat2000." 

Of course, as they also point out, there are limitations to this method, such as it being able to only run apps in the lower resolution of 480x320!  Still, it's quite an achievement nonetheless, and Engadget noted:

"Sometimes, it's much more rewarding simply to appreciate a technical achievement rather than worry about its legal or practical implications." 

In conclusion, well I think that I would much prefer to play or run iOS apps on a real iOS device, but still it's rather cool to see something designed for one platform actually running on another one. I'm not sure if RIM is going to do anything to actually make the PlayBook officially as accommodating for iOS apps as they have done officially with Android apps, but I guess that if they ever tried the resulting legal fireworks would be pretty spectacular indeed.




And that's my 2 cents 4 this absolutely glorious Friday, June 15, 2012