TECH NEWS – A bold modder installed iOS on Nintendo’s 2017 hardware, and the results were… painfully slow.

The success of the Nintendo Switch 2 is undeniable, with projections pointing to 15–16 million units shipped by the end of the fiscal year in March 2026. But the original Switch is still the subject of some bizarre experiments—like this one by PatRyk, who managed to run iOS on the aging hardware.

After spending two full days on the project, PatRyk unveiled what he calls “the world’s slowest iPhone.” Booting iOS on the Switch takes roughly 20 minutes, the kernel panics frequently, and apps won’t open—they crash or time out almost immediately.

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) 🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/r3B3JPDUDV

— PatRyk (@Patrosi73) June 17, 2025

The whole thing was made possible thanks to a QEMU-based iPhone 11 emulator created by ChefKissInc and made publicly available on GitHub. It’s a technical achievement, no doubt—but a completely unusable one in practice.

PatRyk didn’t reveal whether he plans to continue the project. One thing is certain: massive optimization would be needed, and it’s unclear if future QEMU versions will offer better performance on the Switch 2. For now, we don’t recommend trying this at home—there are far better uses for your Switch. Like, say, playing games.

Just don’t do it using a flashcart, or Nintendo will ban your console from online features (as they already do on the Switch 2—and yes, we’ve reported on that).

Source: WCCFTech, Tom’s Hardware