Is it possible to build an Iphone/Ipad app (and Android app) that can do two things: stream an interface and the respective content (particularly video) to a TV and then let me use the phone itself as a remote control for this interface?
Basically the idea is, you don’t need a smart TV anymore or some kind of set-top box or other connected device, just the smart phone which you carry around all the time anyway and which is connected to your local wireless connection. Maybe a docking station with a HDMR connection to the TV, so you are not emptying your battery.
Do you know any comparable implementation or use?
If it is theoretically possible, can you anticipate any performance problems, bottlenecks and how those could be resolved?
If this it’s not possible, which links are missing, what technology would have to be developed first?
Thank you for your thoughts on this!
Jacob
The iPhone/iPad would work for this. It allows you to output to a second screen. You can stream video, audio, whatever. A cool example I saw was using the TV as the primary display and the phone as a controller for a game.
There are two ways to do it. You can use an hdmi output or a vga output. There is also a AirPlay, which will let you do it wirelessly. You would need an AirPlay capable device (like an AppleTV) for it to work though.
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Is it feasibly (by feasible, I mean would apple allow) To create a piece of hardware that would allow the USB cable to act as a video input. I have not been able to find anything like this on the market. I know that it's possible to stream video through WIFI locally, but from what I have read it's quite laggy. I also know that in order to create hardware you need a MFi membership, but I'm note even sure if apple would allow this sort of functionality.
Technically, yes it is possible, but in this case for Apple iPhone and iPad is not. USB protocol has a master/slave architecture, for example a Windows PC is the host, while the USB device is the slave. When the USB device is plugged in, the host is informed about the capabilities of the device through the USB descriptor, later the host will request/send abstract USB packets that may be audio, video, files, whatever.
In your case, for iPhone and iPad the host feature is disabled, they may be only clients for other hosts - a PC for instance. It's a marketing decision, because people would be able to buy cheap external storage, instead of more expensive devices or cloud storage. As a consequence your video streaming device which would be a client will not work.
There are two workarounds: one would be to crack Apple iPhone, iPad software, so you cannot build a business on top of it. The second one, would be that your USB video cable to be smart enough (through an embedded controller) to act as a host with the iPhone, iPad, and would a second software on the Apple device to talk with your hardware. It's not so easy, but maybe it worth the effort, who knows...
I know it is the old thread but my answer can be usefull for someone to make further investigation...eventually to provide some schematic, etc. Definitely IT IS POSSIBLE and I have already tried it. The DJI Lightbridge device used mainly for the UAV cameras and video transmission has an USB port and their own aplication for Android/iOS (iPhone) that can transmit the video and to view/record pictures from camera on tablets or phones. The phone acts as FPV monitor in that case. I have used it with the Android tablet and also with the iPhone 5s and it works great!
I have been searching and searching, but found nothing yet. Is it really true that there isn't a straightforward way to establish a BT connection from my iPhone to another (3rd party) BT device, i.e. an audio receiver. I know this is possible through the OS (I own a Belkin BT music receiver that works this way - it appears in Settings and from there I can connect to it). Note that I am not interested in pairing to iOS-devices, but an iPhone and my custom made hardware.
I've managed to find Google's BTStack at code.google.com, iBlueNova, Celeste and more, which all must be run through Cydia or similar and also I stumbled upon Apple's MFI-program, which seems fairly complicated.
Does anyone have any experience with bluetooth and iOS, if so, how and where do I get started?
If one might be interested, the project I am developing involves a piece of hardware with a BT device attached on it. The app should be able to send simple commands via bluetooth (basically just ASCII characters) to the device, which will react depending on what it receives.
If you are developing accessories that need to connect to iOS devices and want to use your own communication mechanism then your only option is to join the Apple MFi program.
I've got an idea for a tool I would like to make for Google TV once honeycomb + market lands on it, but it would function worlds better if I could also turn on the TV rather than having to make the user do it themselves
My idea is simple: Schedule your favourite shows, tv turns on, activates the STB then tunes to the proper channel when the show starts.
For reference I would be devving this on a Revue, which I know has the IR blaster and such needed to send the remote signals.
Yes, you can do that and more using the Anymote Protocol. For sample code, take a look at the source of the Google TV Remote app: http://code.google.com/p/google-tv-remote/
If you can control the IR device, then turning on the TV should be a snap. Additionally, some newer TVs have an HDMI functionality that lets you turn it on using it; however, not all TVs support this. All TVs do support infrared, though.
You'd want to look for "System Standby" here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi#CEC
The TV would have to technically be in its "sleep" mode for the device to turn it on, similar to how PC monitors work.
Intro: I have a Denon S-52 internet radio with an iPod/iPhone dock (the older 12V kind, so charging is not possible with newer devices but audio/control data is passed through). The radio has an external clickwheel-like control that worked beautifully with iPod nano/classic etc. Since the iPhone/iPod touch no longer have any clickwheel functionality, the signals from the Denon clickwheel no longer have any effect while playing (ie no seeking), but can navigate through some menus on iOS, and play/pause works. The few clickwheel apps I've tried obviously ignore the external signals.
Questions: How hard would it be for someone with no iOs programming experience (just C/C++/C#, plus an objective C tutorial from lynda.com) to develop a basic audio player app that would accept signals from the external Denon clickwheel to seek within an audio file (for my own use, at least at first)? I'm assuming this is possible because the signals are sometimes processed (as mentioned above), but I'd be happy to be proven wrong before I waste a lot of time and effort. I also assume a standard $99 iOS developer membership would be enough (since the device itself is already MFi)? Or perhaps an app that has this feature already exists?
How hard would it be for someone with no iOs programming experience (just C/C++/C#, plus an objective C tutorial from lynda.com) to develop a basic audio player app that would accept signals from the external Denon clickwheel to seek within an audio file (for my own use, at least at first)?
Nearly impossible. It's not just the challenge of figuring out how to access the dock connector and interpret the signals of interest. The real problem is that you want to use those signals to control music that's playing, and you're probably thinking of trying to control the iPod application rather than writing your own music player. Communicating between two apps is difficult at best, and probably not possible if the target app (iPod) doesn't provide a mechanism for external control. And the fact that you're new to the platform doesn't make any of this easier.
Your best hope is probably to file a bug with Apple requesting this feature and hope that they'll add it for you.
I was able to do this by jailbreaking my iOS device, which enabled me to access the serial port for iPod Access Protocol communication at /dev/tty.iap. Then I could incorporate something like the functions found in this iPhone Serial Port Tutorial (check archive.org if the link no longer works) to read the incoming signals and respond accordingly.
Update: An even better solution seems to be to write a tweak hooking into the iPodUI private framework and intercept the commands directly, and then message the Music player about what to do (see this post for more details).
I am working on an app for a client where he will be showing it in a board from to a group of directors for a serious presentation. Because the iPhone is so small, it wouldn't make sense to have him demo the app on the actual device because no one would see anything.
Is it possible to have the screen output on a computer or tv so that everyone in the room can see what is going on?
http://dragonforged.com/DFVideoOut.shtml
For outputting video off an App from the iPhone/iPod.
Demo of the software http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upfTZRlszJo
UPDATE: The AV cables described below will not work. Apple only enables TV output for YouTube, iPod Video and iPod Photos.
From Apple's support site:
All you need to get TV out is a compatible iPod or iPhone and the correct cable. If your device works with the component and composite cables, then the choice depends on the TV(s) you will be connecting to.
You need either the Composite AV Cable or the Component AV Cable. Both cables connect to the iPhone's dock connector.
Not unless you're Steve Jobs.
Use the emulator to demo the app via a laptop.
Then pass around an iPhone for the 'hands on' time.
If it's not a phone app, but suitable for the iPod touch, then buy a dozen of them to pass around as demos.
Its not exactly what you want but:
www.projectaphone.com
You cant pass the phone around, but in reality - you need to see the finger interaction anyways.
I wonder if an overhead projector would work - with the projector light turned off of course. Maybe the light emitted from the iPhone would be sufficient in a dark room?
You could demo it on the simulator.
Some applications for jailbroken iPhones exist to let an AV cable work in any application. The ones that come to mind are iPhone-TVOut (http://code.google.com/p/iphone-tvout/) and ScreenSplitr.