Softwareemulationiphonemacosopen-source
Henge runs macOS on an iPhone and turns the screen into its trackpad
The GPL-licensed project can't go on the App Store, so you sideload it, enable JIT yourself and clear out about 43 GB first.
A Mac now fits in a pocket, as long as the pocket holds an iPhone 17 Pro. Henge, from a developer who goes by Leviidev on GitHub, runs a full copy of macOS on an iPhone, and the README sums up the pitch in five words: “macOS on your iPhone and iPad.”
It doesn’t borrow anybody else’s engine. The README says Henge uses its own JIT and virtual devices, “rather than QEMU or Virtualization.framework.” A JIT, short for just-in-time compiler, translates code on the fly while it runs, and iOS normally doesn’t let ordinary apps do that. So the README states flatly that “JIT is required,” and lists the workarounds: StikDebug, TrollStore, a jailbreak, or the built-in StikJIT helper on iOS 26 or later. This is not a tap-and-install affair.
The touch interface is the clever bit. “The screen is a trackpad: hold to drag, two fingers to scroll,” the README says, with Esc, Tab, Control, Option and Command keys sitting above the on-screen keyboard. Your phone becomes a Mac’s trackpad and keyboard at once, which beats hunting for a menu bar with a fingertip the size of a pixel-hostile grape.
Then the bill arrives. Henge needs iOS or iPadOS 17 or later and an A14 or M1 chip or newer. You install “Henge.ipa” through SideStore or AltStore, or “Henge.tipa” through TrollStore. Sequoia wants “about 43 GB free,” which covers a 17 GB download you can delete afterward and 26 GB for the Mac itself. The README says a Mac gets 4, 6 or 8 GB of RAM, though the 0.2 release notes, posted November 7, say memory is now selectable from 1 to 16 GB.
The speed claims come from the maker. “On an iPhone 17 Pro, macOS reaches the lock screen in about 15 seconds,” the README says, and it says the same of Discord opening. That’s the project’s own number, not an independent test, and the README is just as direct about the rest: “It’s emulation, so it runs slower than a real Mac.” Graphics are tested on macOS’s own apps, Chrome, Firefox, VS Code and Discord, and “Other apps may draw wrongly.”
The 0.2 release adds more than version bumps. It lists Retina and Performance screen modes, smoother Magic Keyboard scrolling and a smaller pointer with a size setting. The Mac can also drive an external display over USB-C, and the notes say that works “on iOS 27 and on iOS 17-26.” Fixes tied to five GitHub issues went in too. Somebody is clearly using this thing on a real desk.
Where does it go from here? Projects like this tend to follow the same arc: the first release proves it boots, the second makes it usable, and contributors start fixing the hardware they happen to own. The iPad support already arrived that way. The limits that look permanent, like “Only one Mac can start per launch,” are the sort a bored contributor fixes on a Saturday. The sideloading-and-JIT setup is the part a contributor can’t fix inside the emulator, since it depends on the tools Henge leans on. Anybody counting on this as a daily Mac should wait until Apple Account sign-in stops failing.
Meanwhile, the iPad side has a snag nobody has solved. The README admits iPadOS keeps some keyboard shortcuts for itself.
Command-Tab stays with iPadOS.