A team from Columbia University's Department of Computer Science has released details of a new program called 'Cider' which can enable an Android device to run Apple iOS apps in addition to the normal Android apps.
Touted as an Operating System compatibility architecture, Columbia University has produced the following video demonstrating Cider running both Android and iOS apps on a Google Nexus 7.
The key thing here is that the apps are unaltered so as the team puts it Cider enables running of native unmodified binaries from foreign operating systems without the need for any conversion of the app.
Currently the University says they've no plans to turn this into a commercial product as they still regard the program in its current state as a prototype. Given the progress they've already been making though, as very clearly demonstrated in the video, it is likely that the commercial attractiveness of this product will become increasingly difficult to deny.
Further details are available in a paper produced, and made publically available, by Columbia University here.
