Hacker squeezes Google Chromium OS onto iPad

A new video showcases a hacked iPad running Google's Linux-based Chromium OS.

Considering you can already hack the iPad to run Flash and Windows 95, it should come as little surprise that Chromium OS has finally boosted its way over the fence and into Apple’s walled garden.

YouTube user Hexxeh, who regularly cooks up custom builds of Google’s operating system over at his own site, posted video of the iPad apparently running Chromium OS, the open-source version of Chrome OS. The demo depicts the “Chromepad” running the Chrome browser and responding to touch commands, but doesn’t run long enough to show much else.

While the iPad could certainly be robust enough to run Google’s lightweight, Linux-based operating system, skeptics will probably question whether it might be running through a virtual machine, ala this Windows XP demo from April, or even on lookalike iClone hardware from China.

As for the real version of Chrome OS running on officially supported hardware, Acer has already claimed it will be first to market with a netbook, and Google has previously hinted that the first  Chrome OS devices will arrive this fall.