An "iOS version of DroidDeck": 348 stars in 13 days, won by being in the right place

In late October 2026, DroidDeck was hot on Android while iPhone users could only watch. A developer named Kusch Qin got real Windows Steam running on an iPhone, named it iDeck, and personally went to DroidDeck's forum to say: iPhone users, come check out the iOS version. 13 days later, 348 stars. Below: what it actually is, where the stars came from, why it's already declining, and how you could use this approach.

A 1.5x speed screen recording

2026 Oct 24 night (UTC), a repo called kuscholar/iDeck appeared on GitHub. The README's first screen is a landscape screen recording, with small print underneath: "1.5x speed, experimental build": tap the iDeck icon on the iPhone home screen, log in to Steam, complete Steam Guard verification, browse the game library, turn the phone sideways. The screen shows the loading screen of 2013's "Tomb Raider", with a full set of Xbox-style virtual buttons floating on both sides.

The next morning, the author published a long post on dev.to. The first line:

My Steam backlog has plenty of games. My pocket has an iPhone.

(I have a pile of unplayed games in my Steam library, and an iPhone in my pocket.)

On the same day, he posted in the DroidDeck repo's Discussions (Show and tell, #1536) with the title "iPhone version of DroidDeck" and the body "iPhone users please check out the iOS version of DroidDeck - iDeck". That evening, Taiwanese tech site kocpc published a story titled "iPhone becomes a Steam Deck!", almost frame by frame from that screen recording.

What it actually is

In one line: an iOS app you have to sideload with your own signing, running Valve's real Windows Steam client on the iPhone locally in Big Picture (big-screen controller) mode. No streaming, no PC needed.

The heavy lifting is done by something else. What lets an iPhone run Windows programs is Will Faust's open-source project Madeira: Wine provides the Windows environment, FEX-Emu translates x86 instructions to ARM on the fly, and DXMT renders Direct3D onto Metal. Madeira got a round of coverage from Notebookcheck, iThinkDiff and others in September, and now has 3,078 stars. iDeck's work is getting Valve's stock Steam Big Picture running on top of Madeira, fixing compatibility bugs, and turning the install into a four-step guide. The README openly says the project was "AI-assisted".

Its limits are stated plainly too: it needs iOS 26 or later, you sign and sideload it with an Apple ID, and it needs JIT enabled (so it will never be on the App Store). It has only been tested on one iPhone 15 Pro Max, with iPad "not yet verified". The latest notes also warn that "Steam may freeze after you quit the third game".

Where the stars came from

The numbers are GitHub's daily star counts. The six alpha builds have been downloaded about 4,500 times in total (GitHub Releases, 11-06), with the most downloads, 1,774, on the 10-29 build. Each release has several files, so fewer phones actually installed it and fewer still got it running (inference). 13 forks are all empty, with no one continuing the work on top of it.

The traffic path is clear, and every step was one the author took himself:

1. Name and slogan mirror the original. iDeck mirrors DroidDeck; the earliest repo description was "brings the SteamOS experience to iOS", which differs from DroidDeck's "…to Android" by one word. It now reads "Steam Big Picture experience", plus a line saying "not the official iOS version of DroidDeck". The name had already done its job.
2. Standing at the upstream's doorstep. DroidDeck had 14k to 18k stars back then, gaining hundreds to thousands a day. Its website and wiki had a page answering "Is there an iOS version?" The answer was no. iDeck's post sat in the discussion board that these people check every day.
3. Posting in the right subreddit. r/EmulationOniOS is where iPhone emulator and sideload players hang out, and the thread title literally says "iOS version of DroidDeck".
4. One screen recording was enough for media to write a story. kocpc had covered Madeira before, so there was a ready-made coverage chain; questreviewcenter then rewrote kocpc's story.

No major English or US tech outlet covered it. Hacker News had nothing, and searching TikTok turns up no videos about iDeck specifically; the viral videos are all about DroidDeck. It spread within a small circle.

Why now: two waves of heat collided

• DroidDeck turned "your phone as a Steam Deck" into a month-long hit. Open-sourced in Sep 24, growing 300 to 1,500 stars a day through October, now at 18,059 stars. Covered by Tom's Guide, with hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. Android users are playing it, iPhone users are asking for it.
• Madeira had just proven iPhones can run Windows games. The foundation was off the shelf, open-source, and thoroughly covered by the media.
• iDeck was the first to step up and say "I'm the iOS version." Built in Oct 24, right when both waves of hype were at their peak.

Its one real technical difference from the other Madeira derivatives is that it runs Valve's own Steam client instead of rebuilding a launcher UI. Accounts, Steam Guard, and game licensing all go through Valve's own flow. That makes the "Steam Deck experience" claim credible, but it isn't what made it take off. BCD, another Madeira derivative from the same period (a self-built launcher with Steam and GOG built in), started its repo in Oct 19, didn't ride any famous name, and still got 487 stars, more than iDeck. Most of the traffic came from the big topic of "running PC games locally on iPhone," and iDeck grabbed a bigger slice by having an easy-to-remember identity.

Who is competing for the same crowd

Star counts are from around 11-06. In the more than a month since 9 and October, five or six Madeira derivatives have appeared, and iDeck ranks second.

Why it is already declining

Daily adds dropped from 10-28 to 11-06 on 98 to 9. The reason is easy to guess: people who wanted an iOS DroidDeck already came by. The rest face three hurdles: sideload with a signing tool, enable JIT, and hope the game runs. Most watch the demo video, hit star, and leave. Its ceiling is set by the emulator core and the platform: if Madeira can't run a game, neither can it, and until Apple opens up JIT it stays a sideloading toy forever.

If it were you

The takeaway: don't build a seventh "Steam on iPhone" project. That spot is full and the heat is fading. What is worth taking from iDeck is its playbook: the "other-platform version of X" position, which costs close to nothing.

Who it suits: developers who can port or map a popular open-source project onto another platform or ecosystem (Android→iOS, Mac→Windows, Python→Rust, English→Chinese, VS Code→JetBrains all count).

Who it doesn't suit: people who want to build lasting attention through projects like this. The foundation isn't yours, users may not be able to install it, and stars come fast and go fast. It's also a poor fit for anyone who can't handle compatibility-layer grunt work; iDeck's README is full of bugs like WoW64 and CEF.

How to do it:

• Watch GitHub for single-platform projects gaining hundreds of stars a day. Search their issues and discussions for "iOS", "Windows", "Mac" and "port". If people keep asking, that's the signal.
• Match the name and the one-line slogan, and put "inspired by X, not the official version" in the first line of the README. You get the name's pull without angering the original author.
• Put a recording that proves "it really runs" at the top of the README, even if it covers only one scenario and is sped up 1.5×. Media write from recordings.
• State the limits clearly. In hardcore circles, being upfront ("only tested on one machine", "freezes on the third game") earns more stars than hype.

How to get users: as iDeck did, cover three places on launch day: the original project's discussion board (Show and tell-style sections, not the issue tracker), subreddits where the target platform's users gather, and the media outlets and X accounts that have covered the original. They already have context for a story, so you only need to swap in your name.

When to get in: while the original is still adding hundreds of stars a day. iDeck came in a month after DroidDeck went open-source, which was late but still in time. Once the original's daily adds drop to double digits, the ceiling for the mirror version drops with it.

Signs you misread the moment: three days after launch your star count still isn't adding double digits a day. That means fewer of the original's users wanted another-platform version than you assumed, or someone else already claimed the spot. Another sign is the original announcing it will build that platform itself, which wipes out your position the same day.