The Nintendo Switch, a runaway success since its release, continues to surprise with unconventional experiments. One of the most intriguing of these experiments involved running iOS on the first-generation Switch, a move that has left many scratching their heads.
The results, however, have been far from impressive.
While the Switch is a powerful portable gaming console when running its native operating system, attempting to install iOS was nothing short of a nightmare. A user, known as PatRyk, took on the challenge of installing iOS on the device, and after two full days of effort, the experience turned out to be a disaster.
The setup was done through a QEMU version created for the iPhone 11 and uploaded to GitHub by ChefKissInc. The end result? A painfully slow experience. Booting iOS on the Switch took a mind-boggling 20 minutes, and the console became the world’s slowest “iPhone.” Even when the system finally booted up, the kernel would panic whenever any action was performed, with apps failing to launch due to constant crashes.
“I’ve lost my mind (and 2 days of my life to install this). Behold: the world’s slowest iPhone 🎉🎉 Takes over 20 minutes to boot, kernel panics every 2nd thing you do, can’t open any apps (they all time out and crash) 🚀🚀,” PatRyk tweeted, summarizing the experience.
Though the tinkerer has not provided further updates on whether they will continue their work on this project, the consensus is clear: the Switch needs significant optimization to make this work better. Whether future QEMU updates will make iOS run smoother on the Switch remains to be seen, but for now, it’s safe to say that trying to run iOS on a Switch is more trouble than it’s worth.