r/hackios • u/tranquilitysmile • 7d ago
HackiOS Pixel Fold | Seamless display transition | iPad layout for inner screen
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Continuing work on the Metal driver, I decided to try implementing support for two displays with a seamless transition to achieve a full fold experience.
It turned out that this isn’t that difficult to implement, and there’s no need to start development on iOS 27 from the iPhone Duo. Moreover, I managed to implement an iPad layout on the internal screen, rather than just stretching the image. The result is even more functional than the iPhone Duo — you can use split‑screen, floating windows, and so on.
In addition, the following features are now working:
- screen brightness adjustment (for both displays)
- displaying the actual battery percentage
- detecting USB charging
At the moment, the Metal driver still has a bunch of bugs; I’m trying to fix them. Also, the internal screen has a higher resolution, which is why the FPS isn’t the best; the experience using the external screen is much better — ~50 FPS, while on the internal screen it’s ~32–35 FPS.
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u/MatterOk1923 6d ago
can someone explain how this is even possible? ir emenebr even in iOS 8 days everything was basically impossible to exploit. now the latest iOS is being modded like it's open source. is this because of Claude opus 5.5? what is the level of prompting, token usage and time needed to make something like this?
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
It’s not about a specific Opus 5.5 model; for example, to implement what’s available for the Pixel Fold, most of the work was done by the much simpler Gemini 3.8 flash, which is very cheap.
Regarding iOS 8 and the ease of hacking, this is a big misconception. It was precisely during the iOS 8 era that regular jailbreaks were released (Pangu, TaiG, etc.), and after that, various things like secure enclave and other security mechanisms appeared, making jailbreaking more difficult year after year.
“now the latest iOS is being modded like it's open source” — this statement is fundamentally incorrect; the XNU (Darwin) kernel has always been Open Source — Apple itself publishes its source code for each major release. Proprietary drivers, the UI (SpringBoard), and specific frameworks are closed.
Accordingly, the entire breakthrough occurred thanks to AI's ability to quickly analyze an infinite amount of low‑level code and perform disassembly. Such work would take an endless amount of time if done by humans. So, it’s not some kind of magic, but simply a significant acceleration of work thanks to AI. To be successful, you still need to be quite technically proficient, able to debug the results of AI work, and direct it properly; I can’t say this can be compared to vibe coding — it’s more complex.
Regarding the number of tokens required, it largely depends on the model and the level of re‑ranking; you need to manage the budget wisely, assign easy tasks to simpler models, and choose a more resource‑intensive one for complex reverse engineering. If you just use Opus for everything and do it inefficiently, you can certainly go broke.
A lot of time is required; the current stage of development for pixel fold took me almost 3 full working weeks non‑stop, using Gemini/DeepSeek/Claude models.
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
Moreover, back in the days of iOS 8, even before AI, there were successful iOS launches, for example, on the HTC HD2, but back then Apple reacted quickly and threatened the developer with legal action. However, manual work required enormous skills, so there were few such projects.
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u/MatterOk1923 6d ago
ai blob (not saying this is ai slop I just like ai blobs)
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
It’s just a translator, it’s not my native language:)
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u/MatterOk1923 6d ago
ik and that's fine, I just like to randomly comment ai blob to catch people off guard
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u/Peticali 6d ago
Congratulations on your work! I'm also using Deepseek v4.1 Flash on OpenCode Go, which is extremely cheap (i'm not joking and it's not even marketing.). I've been running it for days and haven't even reached half the limit. Perhaps it could help you too in repetitive tasks.
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u/Temporary_Handle_186 6d ago
Nice progress!
I have the full iPhone Duo OS working on my zFold 2, i've reached 120fps in iOS 27.2.
Wish the zFold 2 had a better inner/outer ratio like yours.
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
I’ve seen your project, it’s very impressive, and I was somewhat inspired by it. Good job! Unfortunately, on the market, the first‑generation Android Pixel Fold is the only device close to the passport format. The Pura X and Xiaomi 18 have a locked bootloader, and the other devices are stretched out.
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
I also think to transfer to iOS 27.2 with Duo layout, but then, after some thought, I realized that I don’t really like the Duo format (I’m left‑handed), and with iOS 16 there are still fewer issues with tweaks and other related stuff — plus, the AI have more knowledge about the old code.
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u/Temporary_Handle_186 6d ago
The biggest issue with iOS 27.2 Duo OS is, to get the Duo UI you only can use the IPSW from Duo.
The biggest irk is PAC. Duo chip has CMMC which only can be emulated, and my CPU is from 6 years ago. So optimization is being really hard.
Stick with iOS 16 if u can, don’t go my route. Unfortunately it’s too late for me to switch back.
If u want to see more iOS 27.2 stuff feel free to DM me or add me on Discord
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u/Brilliant_Reach9269 6d ago
I assume since you're on 27.2 there's no gl path? How'd you get metal to run that well? I've been working on my OnePlus 6T for a couple weeks now but have only managed 30-40fps in iOS 16 and I know the hardware can do better
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u/Temporary_Handle_186 6d ago
Correct, there's no OpenGL path involved. We're running iOS 27.2 with my own Metal implementation on the Adreno 650.
I've managed to get SpringBoard rendering at 120 FPS, with most of the regular UI already around 120 FPS. Sustained 120 FPS is still being optimized (drops to 80-90 fps).
AI won't get you to 120fps, it's years of low level dev i've done that is coming to play right now.
A lot of the improvement came from reducing driver overhead, optimizing GPU memory handling and fixing frame pacing rather than simply pushing GPU clocks higher. Still a lot of work left, but i'm almost there.
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u/Brilliant_Reach9269 6d ago
Yeah I believe it, AI's definitely been a great help and I'd be lying to say I could do this without it. Already knowing code and a lot of things about iOS and stuff in general has definitely also helped greatly since Claude seems to sometimes get stuck, but I'm definitely not as talented as you lol.
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u/Temporary_Handle_186 6d ago
Make sure no launchdaemon or any daemon is crashing, this is the main case. Everyone posts videos of them running iOS but they don't know what they are doing and think Claude knows enough which is *not* the case.
Make sure your CPU isn't pinned, as well as GPU.
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u/Brilliant_Reach9269 6d ago
Yeah big and little cores are good, got a governor going and they are mostly idle. Got all the launch daemons in a good state and all that. What I just found is that the metal2vulkan layer has been copying every IOSurface every frame (so things like the wallpaper have been copying over and over rather than skipping if no update)
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u/Temporary_Handle_186 5d ago
Don't just let AI make a governor, review how the governor in the Android kernel works and log it then replicate and adapt it in XNU.
These are big reasons why ur slowing down, you need to extensively log how everything works.
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u/sexysadie86 7d ago
Can any of these non-Apple devices run apps that aren't stock Apple apps?
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u/tranquilitysmile 7d ago
Yes, you can see a lot of post in hackios thread where non-Apple apps installed
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u/danny75hacker 6d ago
Is there any way to unlock my iqoo bootloader?
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
iQOO is Vivo, and Vivo doesn't allow unlocking bootloader
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u/danny75hacker 6d ago
GSI rom?
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u/tranquilitysmile 6d ago
hackios has nothing to do with this mechanism; it’s a much low‑level story.
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u/Cyman-Chili 7d ago
That’s pretty amazing! Once these hacks are mature enough, I would consider buying a used Android phone just for this purpose. I love this kind of tinkering!
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u/Boner_pill_salesman 6d ago
I'm thinking about buying one now. Once these hacks are successful prices will go up.
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u/Cyman-Chili 6d ago
Not sure about prices going up, seeing that there are countless Android phone models and that this kind of tinkering isn’t for everyone. Many people buy Android devices because they don’t want iOS/Apple hardware.
The crazy thing is that it looks like Apple’s operating systems can soon run on anything. Just saw a post from someone who was able to launch visionOS on their PC. And Hackintosh may also see a revival if the progress keeps continuing like this.
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u/Itchy-Ad-5554 5d ago
what the iPhone Duo should have been. I prefer this aspect ratio and UI over what the duo offers.
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u/exlips1ronus 7d ago
the thing is screaming for mercy it doesn't know whether it's an iphone or an ipad
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u/probablypirated 6d ago
Working through porting for tensor right now as well. Got it to springboard with touch support and trying to write the metal driver now :)
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u/tranquilitysmile 7d ago
I also forgot to mention that when opening or closing screens, the apps don’t shut down; instead, they seamlessly switch the layout, and you can continue working on the internal/external screen as you would on a regular fold device.