OldOS app lets you turn your new iPhone into an ancient one

Feeling nostalgic about the good old days of home buttons and bubbly icons? Well, there's a way to bring it all back.

An app called OldOS (via The Verge) recreates the iOS 4 experience on a new iPhone. An open source project created by 18-year old developer Zane, OldOS uses SwiftUI to create a near pixel-perfect iOS4 experience, down to such details as the unlock slider and original wallpapers. It also brings back the original look of many iOS apps, including Photos, Maps, Safari, and Notes.

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If you're wondering about the notch, which wasn't a thing 10 years ago when iOS 4 was widely used, don't worry — it's hidden by a fat black bar on top of the app, making the experience a lot more genuine.

Of course, some parts of the experience are impossible to fully bring to life — the home button is just a drawing, for example, and the Messages app doesn't work — but the entire thing is quite impressive and even usable as a secondary OS. (You gotta really, really love iOS 4 to do that, though.)

To install OldOS, you'll have to install TestFlight first, which is Apple's platform for testing apps that are still in development. Developers and tinkerers can find the project's source code over here.