This iPhone running Windows XP works about as well as you think it would

Aw, just like the old days.
 By 
Brett Williams
 on 
This iPhone running Windows XP works about as well as you think it would
Windows XP back in its natural habitat: a boxy old computer monitor. Credit: ERIC VIDAL/REX/Shutterstock

Just because you can retrofit a modern day device to run an outdated, classic OS, should you?

Yes. The answer is always yes.

There's now a video making the rounds of good ol' Windows XP chugging along on an iPhone 7 equipped with the latest version of iOS, 10.2.1. The classic OS is a sight for sore eyes—emphasis on sore after watching all the slow load times that make up most of the demo.

The video, which was spotted by WCCFtech, shows YouTuber Hacking Jules putting XP through its paces. It's impressive especially when you remember that XP came out 16 years ago, right around the same time Apple debuted the iPhone's first ancestor, the OG iPod.

Check out the painfully slow demonstration of the OS in the video below and reminisce about all those agonizing extra seconds it used to take to open any program on your PC. It doesn't show off much in terms of functions, but there's no denying it's definitely the XP of old.

That cobwebby XP isn't running natively on the iPhone, though — it's made possible through an emulator called Xcode, which is loaded up with a Windows XP ROM.

If you want to take your own iPhone back to the early aughts and the glory days of XP, you can use the directions from this GitHub project. It's not quite on the same level as the Raspberry Pi-powered, Windows 98 running wearable, but it's still a welcome blast from the past—if you still have your 2001-level patience, that is.

Topics iPhone

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Brett Williams

Brett Williams is a Tech Reporter at Mashable. He writes about tech news, trends and other tangentially related topics with a particular interest in wearables and exercise tech. Prior to Mashable, he wrote for Inked Magazine and Thrillist. Brett's work has also appeared on Fusion and AskMen, to name a few. You can follow Brett on Twitter @bdwilliams910.

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