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WebOS port to Android devices possible???

i dont have an andorid device or anything (yet) but its a known fact that the Palm Pre's OS (WebOS) which may turn out to be a success is run under linux as is the Android platform. Now im no programmer but from hearing that i might think that it could be possibly ported and it could be easier to do than Winmo
flame away if im totally nuts
but is it possible???

i think this is a good ? imo! It would be something to tinker with but since the phone just came out 1'st you would have to find somebody willing to dump the os

You're gay. Why can you think that ?

funbacon said:
You're gay. Why can you think that ?
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Talk about something that is completely uncalled for. Have you ever heard of constructive criticism or is that another concept that is lost in translation to you?

Gimpeh said:
Talk about something that is completely uncalled for. Have you ever heard of constructive criticism or is that another concept that is lost in translation to you?
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In his defense, he did say "flame away" I do agree with you though...not called for.
I think that it would be a difficult undertaking even if it is able to be done. I don't know if it can be done, however, I do know that IF it can, someone here at xda will do it.

mike21pr said:
i dont have an andorid device or anything (yet) but its a known fact that the Palm Pre's OS (WebOS) which may turn out to be a success is run under linux as is the Android platform.
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WebOS is based on linux, but it's not linux any more than Mac OSX is unix. It's not easily transferrable by simply scraping the files out and dumping them on another device. Drivers have to be written for hardware and to account for buttons that the Pre/intended device does not have.
Android is easy to port because it's open, the source (which shows how the software works down to the smallest code) can be downloaded by anybody and tinkered with. Palm will not be releasing the source of WebOS to the community, so any hacking or porting is significantly more difficult.
Now, should it be attempted? At this point, probably not. If you want WebOS, jump on Sprint's dying network to grab one.
Personally, I don't see Palm making a comeback very well, especially if they've chosen Sprint as their premier network. As a former Sprint customer, I can certainly say that they're a sinking ship right now. Neither the Instinct nor the Pre will be able to raise them up again, they have to go further than just 'cool' hardware.
And as for WebOS, see where it stands in a few months. All news was quiet on more Android phones for about three months after it was released, but by then, the amount of applications (and the release of paid applications) and users gave the phone the momentum it needed. If WebOS obtains that kind of momentum, great, then it might be good to consider. But until it attains the kind of ubiquity that Windows Mobile or Android will hold, it's a bit of an early jump, no?
We might as well port the iPhone OS to the Dream.

jordanjay29 said:
We might as well port the iPhone OS to the Dream.
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NOOOOOOO i will break your phone if you do that, we bought these phones for their openess, not to be locked down by apple.

Not the mention that WebOS is build for an OMAP3 CPU, which has the ARM7 based architecture. So without the source, we may never be able to port it over properly.)
Is WebOS opensource? Or only the linux that it runs on?

ivanmmj said:
Is WebOS opensource? Or only the linux that it runs on?
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The latter.
I don't think Palm is forward-thinking (or cash-flush) enough nowadays to open source webOS. This (as well as the whole one-foot-in-the-grave situation of the past five years) makes me think that despite webOS' flashiness, it may not have much longevity.
I wonder if Palm will license out webOS though. They have licensed out Palm OS in the past, so it's not out of the question. I don't think they can compete in the marketplace if they try copying apple with a single-licensee strategy. Not when options like Android, Symbian, and WinMo can be found on multiple devices from many manufacturers on many carriers.

Good idea. Just to give people an option is pretty cool.

funbacon said:
You're gay. Why can you think that ?
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Isn't it about time this guy gets banned? 90% of his posts are ripping on somebody or their work.
I'm all for another OS to get ported to the dream just for kicks, and to contrast how great and versatile android really is . I must agree with many above in saying it would be very difficult and a long way off if so.

Buster3616 said:
Isn't it about time this guy gets banned? 90% of his posts are ripping on somebody or their work.
I'm all for another OS to get ported to the dream just for kicks, and to contrast how great and versatile android really is . I must agree with many above in saying it would be very difficult and a long way off if so.
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i was thinking of porting android to the pre... made a post about this too.

webOS for android? might sound dumb but is it even possible?

ok saw a post on the sprint hero boards and wanted to ask over here aswell since the g1 area has a lot more developers for it.
would porting webOS to an android phone seem possible? I had a palm pre for a bit was cool and fast, I like android more but the thought of running it would be cool

Noooooooooo

You mean porting over apps?
or running webOS on your phone?

In a word:
No.
In more words:
We need drivers. There are no WebOS drivers for Android devices. Many of the existing drivers that we need are proprietary, meaning (and I'm not sure on this part) most likely the hardware specifications necessary to write drivers are closed as well. If they are not closed, it would be possible--but not for a team of geeks like XDA. You'd need a major entity, like Google, to do it, which won't happen. Besides, not all of WebOS is completely open-source, just like not ALL of what goes into Android phones is. It's just not possible--even if the driver issue could be overcome, which it can't.
Yet another word:
This is a question, so it belongs in Q&A. Not to be a jerk or anything, but just letting you know, so next time you can post there.

Doesn't seem possible at this current time however I disagree with the post above if all of xda devs came together then it might be possible due to the fact cyanogen im guessing could make his own drivers etc. However as said above it would not be possible due to the fact it is not completely open-source
ps: Why would you want webOS it is nothing compared to android - IF you agree then post back with this a smile ^_^

xillius200 said:
Doesn't seem possible at this current time however I disagree with the post above if all of xda devs came together then it might be possible due to the fact cyanogen im guessing could make his own drivers etc. However as said above it would not be possible due to the fact it is not completely open-source
ps: Why would you want webOS it is nothing compared to android - IF you agree then post back with this a smile ^_^
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Have you ever written a device driver? You need detailed spec of the interfaces of the piece of hardware you're trying to talk to. Without them you're trying to build the Empire State Building blindfolded with a teaspoon and pair of pliers.

linuxluver said:
Have you ever written a device driver? You need detailed spec of the interfaces of the piece of hardware you're trying to talk to. Without them you're trying to build the Empire State Building blindfolded with a teaspoon and pair of pliers.
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Okay so simply put we would need MacGyver to write the drivers...

you know, none of this is true, as the drivers for all of the HTC android phones have the drivers built into the kernel (as opposed to running as modules with the exception of wifi) because of GPL, they have released this information, albeit kinda late (*cough* CDMA hero) one stumbling block is how WebOS is going to interface with the drivers may be different, keep in palm has its kernel modifications "drivers" also available (once again because of GPL) so if interfacing is different, it COULD possibly be reverse engineered... the actual WebOS platform IS closed source however, making this all much much more difficult.
http://developer.htc.com/
http://opensource.palm.com/
dont let anyone tell you its impossible, its not. Are you going to port it? No, if you had to start this thread, then its not likely.

mbazdell said:
Okay so simply put we would need MacGyver to write the drivers...
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rofl..............

Napoleon said:
Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools.
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That said I like my android

linuxluver said:
Have you ever written a device driver? You need detailed spec of the interfaces of the piece of hardware you're trying to talk to. Without them you're trying to build the Empire State Building blindfolded with a teaspoon and pair of pliers.
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Also yeah without knowing about the phone it is like building the empire state building. That's why you buy the phone open it up find details on the phone first off and try and figure it out by taking a long look and experimenting otherwise you will never get anywhere. It is like life without actually doing it and just saying about it you will never achieve it so you do it
If Cyanogen or another dev decided to do this it is not impossible as long as they know how to build a device driver which i know 4 of the devs on here can do it is not impossible. The question is would they actually do this project?
Personally I do not see a point in this project if you wanted a webOS why didn't you buy a palm sry if i may sound a little rude but it is the truth why buy a android?
If i may have sounded rude in the sentence above i am very sry you can shun me down

xillius200 said:
For linux once never went my way and stop having a go i was just voicing my opinion it is a free country im just saying with cyanogenmod, Wesgarner, Ctso, Kingklick etc. we stand a great chance at doing it and i bet cyan must have made a device driver before. so please don't go off on one i don't care if this get's made as stated below android is better anyway so get off my back linuxluver and stop being a jackass all I was trying to say is it could be done and not impossible you are making it sound like we have no hope in hell.
ps: I only wan't to come on here to chat and make friends not to be abused
ps2: Also yeah without knowing about the phone it is like building the empire state building. That's why you buy the phone open it up find details on the phone first off and try and figure it out without taking a long look and experimenting you will never get anywhere. It is like life without actually doing it and just saying about it you will never achieve it so you do it
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You really have no idea whatsoever as to how computer hardware works. Like the other person said, there just isn't a chance in hell of a small group of people working in their free time without the cooperation of hardware manufacturers to do what you're saying.
Look at AOSP, think of all the people working on it, and we still don't have everything working on it correctly. And that's with an open-source OS, not to mention Android was meant to use on these HTC phones anyway.

Web OS is really nice but doesn't seem very popular considering only 2 phones have it while. 10+ phones will come out with Android. I bet if this was done the person asking would use it for like a month then go to another ROM. Which means all that work trying to make drivers would go in vain.

xencor said:
You really have no idea whatsoever as to how computer hardware works. Like the other person said, there just isn't a chance in hell of a small group of people working in their free time without the cooperation of hardware manufacturers to do what you're saying.
Look at AOSP, think of all the people working on it, and we still don't have everything working on it correctly. And that's with an open-source OS, not to mention Android was meant to use on these HTC phones anyway.
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So is a small group of people not good enough look at bill gates for example creator of microsoft started of with the apple man 2 people now we have microsoft windows and apple so are you saying a small group of people can't do something amazing every now and again?
Also i do not care about webOS i hate webOS in fact i just wanted to extract my opinion and further fourth nothing is impossible look at wireless electricity about a few years ago seen as a myth now look at it. This could be done one day maybe not now but sometime in the future. Most of webOS is in java anyway and most of it is using dbus.
I thought that emulating it on a jvm may be possible? like freedsb running over the top of windows in a vm.
Also all those who port drivers from windows to linux and max to windows etc. have no help from the manafacturers and they still manage to do it and they work alone.
Im not going to voice my opinion in this thread again i have had enough with people who don't let people talk their mind all it was was an opinion nothing more and a possible chance of it working instead of it sounding like it's impossible unless you try you will never know and that is that stuff this thread i have had enough with you people i am out of here don't bother replying to this because i will not read it.

xillius200 said:
So is a small group of people not good enough look at bill gates for example creator of microsoft started of with the apple man 2 people now we have microsoft windows so youre point is?
Also i do not care about webOS i hate webOS in fact i just wanted to extract my opinion and further fourth nothing is impossible look at wireless electricity about a few years ago seen as a myth now look at it. This could be done one day maybe not now but sometime in the future.
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Do the developers on XDA have a source of revenue that I'm unaware of? Do they have billions of dollars in profits that spurn growth and encourage new, more experienced developers to join the business and help? Is there even a business at all?
The answer is no. There is no R&D department behind XDA. There is no venture capital firm supporting cyanogen or kingklick with money.
Again, you really have no idea what you're talking about. This isn't just a "take open the phone, look at the serial number on the board, and then write your own driver." This is something that computer manufacturers spend years developing their own proprietary code and then design specific chipsets to work with it. Years and money, lots and lots of money.
And you're still forgetting that webOS and even parts of android are not open sourced, which complicates it even further, even to the extent of making a webOS port technically illegal under copyright laws.

xencor said:
not to mention Android was meant to use on these HTC phones anyway.
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not 100% true, both android and WebOS run on top of the linux kernel, drivers are already written, like I said, its not a rewrite of drivers, rather interfacing with hardware may be different, but thanks to GPL, we can more easily figure out how the software interfaces with the drivers since we have drivers (albeit for some different hardware) for both Palm AND Android devices... obviously this would all be no easy task... but hell, android work tits on my Kaiser, with the radio/sms/wifi/camera/gps.... and it WASN'T designed to run android!
something else to mention I suppose is the work done to get Mer Linux (Open source replacement for Maemo) running on the Kaiser/Vogue, it booted and its X system worked enough to get to setup information, albeit the screen was too low of a res to do much and it has far too little ram to be useful... let me put it this way... it would be entirely possible for someone to port WebOS over, though the radio/BT/Wifi/accel/etc. may not work initially. I'd be stoked to try out test builds, and I think so would MANY other people.
*broken down: android wasnt meant to run on these phones, linux was meant to, and android was meant to run on top of that*

xencor said:
Do the developers on XDA have a source of revenue that I'm unaware of? Do they have billions of dollars in profits that spurn growth and encourage new, more experienced developers to join the business and help? Is there even a business at all?
The answer is no. There is no R&D department behind XDA. There is no venture capital firm supporting cyanogen or kingklick with money.
Again, you really have no idea what you're talking about. This isn't just a "take open the phone, look at the serial number on the board, and then write your own driver." This is something that computer manufacturers spend years developing their own proprietary code and then design specific chipsets to work with it. Years and money, lots and lots of money.
And you're still forgetting that webOS and even parts of android are not open sourced, which complicates it even further, even to the extent of making a webOS port technically illegal under copyright laws.
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I have already said in my earlier post that it is not open-source so read b4 you post and even the smallest one man on his own can do someting incredible look at DA cracked the psp 14-15yo and wrote his own drivers and software and look at the ps3 hacker who has found exploit through the memory neither of them have a company or backing just normal people and are you saying that is not possible?
i will not talk any longer all in all webOS is a stupid idea it could be possible one day and end of
ps: I don't like but jmhalder is cool

jmhalder said:
not 100% true, both android and WebOS run on top of the linux kernel, drivers are already written, like I said, its not a rewrite of drivers, rather interfacing with hardware may be different, but thanks to GPL, we can more easily figure out how the software interfaces with the drivers since we have drivers (albeit for some different hardware) for both Palm AND Android devices... obviously this would all be no easy task... but hell, android work tits on my Kaiser, with the radio/sms/wifi/camera/gps.... and it WASN'T designed to run android!
something else to mention I suppose is the work done to get Mer Linux (Open source replacement for Maemo) running on the Kaiser/Vogue, it booted and its X system worked enough to get to setup information, albeit the screen was too low of a res to do much and it has far too little ram to be useful... let me put it this way... it would be entirely possible for someone to port WebOS over, though the radio/BT/Wifi/accel/etc. may not work initially. I'd be stoked to try out test builds, and I think so would MANY other people.
*broken down: android wasnt meant to run on these phones, linux was meant to, and android was meant to run on top of that*
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Thank you for talking some sense on the subject that it is possible thank you very much i respect you because you think anything is possible you may go far in the world. the one's who never try may never know and for that will fall behind. You are the only one on here who talks sense and for that i applaud you
ps: Very Much thanks from Xillius200 for believing it to be possible instead of just shooting it down
ps2: It takes a true person to not give up and takes a less person to give up straight away so never give up

xillius200 said:
I have already said in my earlier post that it is not open-source so read b4 you post and even the smallest one man on his own can do someting incredible look at DA cracked the psp 14-15yo and wrote his own drivers and software and look at the ps3 hacker who has found exploit through the memory neither of them have a company or backing just normal people and are you saying that is not possible?
i will not talk any longer all in all webOS is a stupid idea it could be possible one day and end of
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DA did not write his own drivers. "Cracking" and using existing drivers is not nearly the same thing, nor is using a loophole in a PS3 memory chip.
Again, i'm sorry, but you just have no idea what you're talking about.
As someone else has pointed out by now, it might actually be possible to get webOS on an android phone, but that's only because the drivers already exist, not because cyanogen and XDA are gods and can do what you're proposing.

xencor said:
DA did not write his own drivers. "Cracking" and using existing drivers is not nearly the same thing, nor is using a loophole in a PS3 memory chip.
Again, i'm sorry, but you just have no idea what you're talking about.
As someone else has pointed out by now, it might actually be possible to get webOS on an android phone, but that's only because the drivers already exist, not because cyanogen and XDA are gods and can do what you're proposing.
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I am not calling them gods writing different drivers seperate to a device is possible and DA did write some of his own drivers for the psp for addons and linking to the pc. Also to gain access to the memory he had to make a device and write a driver for it that devices already came wth a driver but he wrote his own. This was a different person XD
And i have had enough i am out of here dont know why the hell we are argueing you do not know much about android either so leave it at that and keep the forum open
I here by cease this fighting going on and say good day

ios dual boot

what is this anyone had a go..
http://code.google.com/p/bootdroid/
does it work.

I don't trust it.
I mean, how did they manage to do it? Apple hasn't released the source code for iOS.

thought it was suspect, download is not there. if you can put android on iphone then surely ios on htc android device is possible

"Anything is possible", but what makes it impossible in this case, is that it is not anywhere near possible.
I'm sorry, but did you read what I said above? Apple has not released the source code for iOS. Meaning, how would devs how to port it?
Google has released the source code for Android, so devs know how to port it to the iPhone.

yes i understood, same old apple monopolize scenario ... can the the source not be extracted from a device. forgive me im no dev

Lawl the source code certainly on the device. The source code is never supplied along with a system/program, or else it'd be easy for piracy and what not, unless it is open source like LINUX. If it were, we'd have iOS years ago on winmo, sybian, webOS, you name it.

Besides the fact it's obviously fake, there's nothing in the repository.

Having played with Gingerbread with Sense 3.0 I wouldn´t want to have iOS on my screen for anything in the world

Good luck i hope they get it working, but for the life of me I can't ever think of a reason to want to use IOS besides, the article is way off on how Iphones have good battery life. That really is not the case, at least for anyone I know and me who have had Iphones in the past

I cant imagine as well why someone would want to have ios and android in the same time, its just damn. Oh, and its really impossible without the ios source-code to do it.

Mmmh ... you shouldn't try that. I think is not safe.

The guy hasn't committed any work on the project yet. He's just reserved the name under a license.
It's not unsafe... It's just not done yet.

AdamOutler said:
The guy hasn't committed any work on the project yet. He's just reserved the name under a license.
It's not unsafe... It's just not done yet.
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I don't remember what part of the forums I saw this but honestly this one member has that on his phone and he was asking on here how he could set the icons for his phone to the iPad version because the size of his phone screen was larger than that of the iPhone 4. The only reason why the dev stopped working on it is because of a seize and desist letter from Apple. How he got the source code is unknown but it is known that Apple went after him with a seize and desist as iOS is not open source. How he got the source code is unknown and if he had finished this project iOS would have been immediately jeopardized and this dev would have faced some serious consequences from Apple. I don't blame him for stopping the project but I would have loved to be one of the beta testers when he had his downloads open. DARN.....

Actually if you google "Hackintosh" you will see that you can run non-open source software on devices that were not designed for the OS.
I'm not saying you can or would want to run iOS on your device just that it is highly feasible that someone, somewhere will do it at some point!
It's also worth pointing out that it would be illegal to do so, and it would not be half as eay to extend through drivers and apps as android which is based on the much more mature codebase of the linux kernel.
Also worth thinking about is that you could program your way to an easier to use, dar i say it more ios-like device by contributing to android and there are more ways than just programming.

Idk if I would want to dual boot iOS on my android. But YOU would want to boot android on A iOS device!

From a developer standpoint, without illegally obtaining source code it'd be easier to build your own OS than to dual-boot iOS

z33dev33l said:
From a developer standpoint, without illegally obtaining source code it'd be easier to build your own OS than to dual-boot iOS
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Well that's an alternative but what if the main reason why people want this dual boot is to get the best of both worlds? Building an entirely new OS sure is a good idea but when you're the only one developing for it....I don't see that much fun in it. Android and IOS would be pretty rad on an android phone especially on a Samsung Galaxy S2 for T-Mobile......at some point I bet this will be done anonymously which could lead to chaos in the development world. However, with the way Apple ensures those things never happen, it's a longshot....this is quite an achievement from this individual who was able to dualboot both OS's on a different device other than an iPhone. I for one would have loved to be part of that beta team but maybe someday it will come alive again. Who knows.....

Why would you willingly put iOS on your phone? May as well buy an iPhone cause as dysfunctional as iPhones are they are suited for iOS

Now something about this seems really fishy to me. It says that you will be using a jailbroke iPad 2 firmware. Now as far as I know the iPad 2 has not been jailbroken yet, not even with a tethered jailbreak. I know this because I spent like 4 hours this evening reading up on how to jailbreak iOS 5 cause I have a friend that wants me to jailbreak her iPhone 4 with the iOS update.

Facincting and cool ....developers are so brilliant

[PROJECT] Biophilia App of Björk to Android

Hi.
I have seen these apps from Björk but they don't seem to be for android. They are only for iPhone.
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
She told Drowned in Sound that the apps had been specifically designed so that they could be easily ported to other platforms -- like Symbian, BlackBerry and Android. "We really made sure when we wrote all the programs that they will transfer to other systems."
"I'm not supposed to say this, probably, but I'm trusting that the pirates out there won't tie their hands behind their back."
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http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive...shttp://www.compositiontoday.com/blog/115.asp
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
Thanks!
Some videos of these apps. You can interact with the music and make your own versions playing or changing things in a very innovative concept.
http://youtu.be/FsxsGrnCGIk
http://youtu.be/kb3kLXVs9J0
http://youtu.be/0Rx-P2UsD5g

Still waiting!
Did anything ever come of this?

Hey anybody! Do sth about it! She preety much asked to do this, so lets do sth. I guess many people would want this app for android, and here? No reply? Please!

Nobody is interested...
I think this app is cracks for iphone, but it wasn't ported to android... It would be much more interesting.

Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.

[email protected] said:
Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.
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There no hackers who like this app, i would say.

humano said:
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
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I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.

mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.
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Thanks Mike for the reply. I didn't see this.
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.

humano said:
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.
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I'm pretty sure. Anyone who claims otherwise is challenged to "show me where the source is".
For Android there is an emulator for PCs that many apps can run on, and an app of this type could run.
I know almost nothing of ios development, but likely there is an ios emulator that can run on a Mac at least ? AFAIR, ios development requires a Mac.
Feel free to send Bjork, or the companies that represent her, email asking about this.
I've been a fan of some of her music, and even acting and I even find her cute... And that's why I responded here. I had an initial thought that this could be an interesting project, but I have no time for such an unpaid hobby project.
BTW, Just looked at the iTunes page and some others. Seems to be a $12.99 app. And says "The full Biophilia App Album is now a paid app for new users, old users maintain same in-app-purchase ability." Something tells me the legal fine print says you're screwed if you hack it, especially if you tried to make a few bucks or do it publicly with your real name.
Artists (with money), hollywood and recording industry types tend to have iPhones. They don't know tech per se, don't want to know tech, and they have the cash to spend. They want something that "just works" and that's what the iPhone does, for a price. And ios is where devs make REAL money. Comparatively speaking, Android sucks for making money.
I saw some comment that they didn't make an Android app "for legal reasons". Sounds like a different way to say "business reasons". I imagine her recording company sells her music on iTunes, but doesn't sell it on Google Play in that big ongoing power play between media companies and tech companies ?

mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person.....
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Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.

mikereidis said:
Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.
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Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Chad_Petree said:
Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
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Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.

mikereidis said:
Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.
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I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.

humano said:
I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.
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I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.

mikereidis said:
I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.
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I am registered in that forum too and it's what you say. They don't have any idea.... :laugh:
But there's good news, at least somebody told in the forum, that she told in an interview, that she will find a cheap way to port biophilia to android.
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy... We would have a BIOPHILIA+
It's what you told before. She doesn't really understand the power of doing it... :victory:

humano said:
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy...
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Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.

mikereidis said:
Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.
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I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...

humano said:
I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...
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I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.

mikereidis said:
I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.
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She said that in one interview. That's what the people in the 4um.bjork.com say. I think it's real.
I saw her live last sommer and was amazing.

Well Biophilia app is already for Android devices!
Check the playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bjork.biophilia

IOS on (an)droid.

Guys. I may seem crazy saying this but is there a way to get IOS on android. There are several ways to get android on Iphones but why cant we switch it around for once.is there an app or mod out there that puts the REAL IOS on android. This is the crazyest thing i done with my (an)droid. I am advanced in hacks and stuff but i cant figure this one out. Or even put windows 7 phone os on. It just seems unfair that windows phone and iphone users can get 2 os's in one phone but us. If you know of an app that puts everything that IOS has (including the apple app store) on to droid. Having an app that emulates the launcher is kinda boring so i want to be adventurous. Anyone have anything then please do say.
Sent From The Phone Of Gamers

main problem ios is closed source. In open source anything can do but not in closed source.

cips gokhle said:
main problem ios is closed source. In open source anything can do but not in closed source.
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Exactly! And that's one of many reasons I don't like apple personally.
I like freedom to do what I want on something I paid good money for. Apple is all proprietary
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium

Apple sucks but there are a few good features
Sent From The Phone Of Gamers

You just need to get the complete IOS sources from Apple, their internal devel tools then write every hardware driver drivers fror your device from scratch.
easy peasy.

A search would have told you this already as this has been asked many time already. And it is always the same answer. It is closed source and even if someone did manage to get it done Apple would issue and C&D order and then sue them.
Thread closed