Hacker Brings iOS Apps To BlackBerry PlayBook

If there's one thing we did not expect to be announced this week, it was that a hacker would have figured out the magic formula that allows BlackBerry devices to run Apple iOS applications. Of course it's not not magic at all, just good old-fashioned hard work in the world of coding – and from what we've seen, this could be a whole new door opened into the usefulness of the infamous PlayBook tablet as well as the rest of the ever-dimming world of BlackBerry smart devices. Would you purchase a BlackBerry PlayBook for less than $200 if it meant you could use iOS apps on it?

The creator of the environment running on the BlackBerry PlayBook that you're seeing in the video below is known as businesscat2000 – not unbecoming of a developer in his position. What he's got running is a bunch of code wizardry the commoners of planet earth will have no idea how to make heads or tails of. In the CrackBerry forums, it's a different story entirely. See what you make of it:

"The CPU isn't emulated on Playbook (though it is on Windows). It works very similarly to how WINE works to run Windows applications on Linux. The app binary is mapped into memory and imports are resolved to point to my own implementation of the various APIs needed. iOS actually uses a few open APIs already, which Playbook supports just as well (GL ES, and OpenAL). The bulk of the work has been in implementing all of the objective C classes that are required. The ARM code of the applications run as-is – the armv6/v7 support on PB/iDevices are pretty much identical, and the code is designed to run in USR mode. No SWIs, GPIO accesses or any of that kind of shenanigans. " – businesscat2000

Then have a peek at a video of some applications being run on the PlayBook without any "magic tricks" being played whatsoever:

You'll see Monkey Ball, Tiny Tower, TomTom navigator, and Sushi Cat (our favorite!) Take note: this fellow has been tested several times in the forums from whens he came and, by our reckoning, does appear to be legit. Think about the possibilities, take a peek at the BlackBerry PlayBook timeline below, and think of what could have been – or what will be now that this new door has been opened!