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I'm trying to figure out a way to mirror an iPad screen to other iPads. This doesn't seem to be supported on the platform though.
Basically, a teacher would have an iPad, then the students would have iPads and see everything that is happening on the teachers screen, but on their screens.
Thoughts?
I have been attempting to find a solution to this problem myself. I have not found any apps that can mirror exactly what is happening on another IPAD, but some come close.
RabbleBrowser and Ideaflight both had potential. Ideaflight appears to be more for business. RabbleBrowser appears to allow the mirroring, except it only works as a browser and a file/picture mirroring.
Both iPads are linked to the same wifi and when you join a session, they will mirror the iPad that started session. Also allows chat (controlled by session starter).
It does NOT continue to mirror if you move out of browser and into another app however. I had dreams of leading a class through a a lesson on google earth, but no go .:(
Another option is attaching a laptop to a projector. Then you download Airserver on the laptop. Go to the menu bar at bottom of iPad and turn on AirPlay. The laptop will mirror the iPad perfectly and project it! It's wireless and works well. I tried the HDMI connector to laptop but it gives a poor quality, shaky image.
Hope they allow mirroring in future updates. The capability is there, don't know why they don't! Guess trying to sell more appletv!
A similar question was asked on the Apple forum (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3118281?start=0&tstart=0), and the following app seemed to help them or answer their question.
Have a look at Replicate Pro on the app store:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/replicate-pro-for-ipad/id363286515?mt=8
One feature listed in the notes:
Share files between two iPads/iPhones that are running this app. (Pro
version only)
I'm not sure if this will cover multiple devices or simply between two, but it may be worth a look. Sadly, the only way to try would be to spend $5.99.
You'll need to create an application for the student iPad that emulates the screen of the teachers iPad. I would suggest that, although i dont know if its possible, the teacher somehow starts up and app that emulates their entire iPad. Meaning, from within the app named "teacher share" (or whatever it is), they can access the music, settings, notes and other apps found on their ipad. Then that information could be sent over a network to the students.
Nearpod is an app that will allow you to mirror a presentation on several iPads. I have had up to 9 at one time. Through the Nearpod program you can make a presentation similar to PowerPoint, and also incorporate interactive questions, which can be multiple choice, short answer, and even drawings. The only drawback is the full version costs $10/month. The free version is still good, you are just limited on the size of the presentation.
After doing lots of research, I found one app which shares iPhone device into another iPhone device. Really great logic they have applied for screen mirroring.
No idea about detailed how they have implemented but after installing and checking the app I came to know that I think they have used iPhone Screen Recording and broadcasting it on to their server and then on another device they are syncing from the same URL.
OliOli a free and simple screen sharing app for iOS.
iOS App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/olioli-screen-sharing/id1382253993?mt=8
WebSite: https://olioli.io/
I am researching how to create an app for my work that allows clients to download the app (preferably via the app store) and using some sort of wifi triangulation/fingerprints be able to determine their location for essentially an interactive tour.
Now, my question specifically is what is the best route to take for the iPhone? None of the clients will be expected to have jail broken iPhones.
To my understanding this requires the use of the wifi data which is a private api therefore not meeting the app store requirements. The biggest question I have is how does American Museum of Natural History get away with using the same technology, but still available on the app store?
if you're unfamiliar with American Museum of Natural History interactive tour app, see here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/amnh-explorer/id381227123?mt=8
Thank you for any clarification you can provide.
I'm one of the developers of the AMNH Explorer app you're referencing.
Explorer uses the Cisco "Mobility Services Engine" (MSE) behind the scenes to determine its location. This is part of their Cisco wifi installation. The network itself listens for devices in the museum and estimates their position via Wifi triangulation. We do a bit of work in the app to "ask" the MSE for our current location.
Doing this work on the network side was (and still is) the only available option for iOS since, as you've found, the wifi scanning functions are considered to be private APIs.
If you'd like to build your own system and mobile app for doing something similar, you might start with the MSE.
Alternatively, we've built the same tech from Explorer into a new platform called Meridian which provides location-based services on both iOS and Android. Definitely get in touch with us via the website if you're interested in building on that.
Update 6/1/2017
Thought I would update this old answer - AMNH is no longer using the Wifi-based system I describe above, as of a few years ago. They now use an installation of a few hundred battery-powered Bluetooth Beacons (also provided by Meridian). The device (iOS or Android) scans for nearby beacons and, based on their known locations and RSSI values, triangulates a position. You can read more about it in this article.
Navizon offers an indoor positioning solution that works for iOS as well as any other platform. You can check it out here:
http://www.navizon.com/product-navizon-indoor-triangulation-system
It works by triangulating the WiFi signals transmitted by the device. Since it doesn't require an app to run on the phone, it bypasses the iOS limitations and can locate any other WiFi device for that matter.
Google recently launched an API called Maps Geolocation API. You can use it for indoor tracking of devices, which essentially can be used to achieve something similar to what AMNH's app does.
I would do this using Augmented Reality. There is a system sort of in place for this, the idea being that you place physical markers that have virtual information associated with them. I believe the system I saw was a type of bar code. When a user holds up the phone with the app, the app uses the camera to read the code and then display information. This could easily be used to make a virtual tour type app distributable through the app store and not even require a WIFI or 3/4G connection. This assumes that you simply load your information and store it locally with your app. Then to update it you simply push an update through the app store. Another solution is to use a SOAP/REST service and provide the information in that way, and this does not use private API's, though it does require some form of internet connection. For this you can see a question I asked about this topic a little bit ago:
SOAP/XML Tutorials Question
In addition, you could load a map of your tour location, and based on what code is scanned you can locate the user on the map and give suggested routes based on interests etc.
I found this tutorial recently on augmented reality, I haven't gone through it, but if its anything like the rest of Ray's tutorials, it will be extremely helpful.
http://www.raywenderlich.com/3997/introduction-to-augmented-reality-on-the-iphone
I'll stick around to clarify any questions or other concerns you may have with your app.
To augment the original answer for devs who were using Cisco MSE for indoor location - now they have an iOS and Android SDK which enables you to do indoor location using the MSE. A simulator can be used as well to develop the app without implementing the infrastructure to start with : https://developer.cisco.com/site/cmx-mobility-services/downloads/
For indoor location you can use Bluetooth LE beacons since it's a very accessible technology nowadays, there are several methods:
Trilateration: it uses 3 beacons, but with the noise and attenuation of Bluetooth signals, it gets quite difficult to determine the exact position and also it's not easy to use more than 3 beacons to increase accuracy.
Levenberg Marquadt method: used to solve non-linear squares problems showed good results on indoor positioning.
Dead Reckoning method: using the motion co-processor of the device, giving an initial position you can calculate the moving path of the device. Not that easy to implement anyway.
I wrote a post on the topic, you can find more info here: http://bits.citrusbyte.com/indoor-positioning-with-beacons/
And you can use this iOS app for your own indoor positioning experiments: https://github.com/citrusbyte/beacons-positioning
I doubt the American Museum is actually using private APIS; you'll probably find the routers that have been setup serve different responses to each other, so the app can detect it's position in the museum.
If you are looking for a cheaper to way to do the same task, you could have signs with QR codes, and use an open source library to let users scan these barcodes as they move through the museum, and update the onscreen content accordingly. On an even more low tech level, you can just tag each area with unique numbers, and distinguish that way.
Is it possible for me to programmatically access a smartphone's sensors (e.g. accelerometer, compass, etc. on an Android or iPhone device) through a browser webpage and JavaScript? I know that the W3C Devices standard can allow access to the camera.
HTML5 is likely to contain a sensor API. Until this is fully standardized, vendors provide their own APIs such as Apple does for mobile Safari.
There's no need for full blown solutions like PhoneGap or similar if it is Ok for you to restrict yourself to a specific vendor/device. If not, frameworks like PhoneGap provide you with a unified, device independent API.
You should be aware of the Performance constraints that apply to Javascript applications running inside the browser of a mobile device. Depending on your type of application and the amount of processing you intend to do on the sensor data, you are better off writing a native application
See https://developer.apple.com/library/safari/iPad/#documentation/SafariDOMAdditions/Reference/DeviceMotionEventClassRef/DeviceMotionEvent/DeviceMotionEvent.html for some reference documentation.
The answer is both "yes" and "no". Each phone manufacturer/OS combination behaves as it sees fit here - for example, the GPS on an iPhone can be accessed, but the compass not:
accessing iPhone compass with JavaScript
You can use something like PhoneGap to do this, I believe.
Check out this chapter called "Controlling the iPhone with JavaScript" from the book Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
This demo considers the iPhone movements on the three axis using the event.accelerationIncludingGravity object:
http://www.omiod.com/iphone/acceleration-demo.php
So far Safari on iPhone is the first to implement it, but I see Android filling this gap very soon.
We have an iphone device in our company and for the remote demo purpose I have to show some of the device specific features like voice call, accelerometer etc. (which is not possible on a iphone simulator), from a mac / windows system. Is there any way to render the device screens on mac /windows machine?
Advance Thanks,
Sathish
I have not tried this but there is a private API MPTVOutWindow which can be used. For details on how look at this blog post http://www.touchcentric.com/blog/archives/3
As this is a private API, it needs to be built into your app and it will never pass the app store submission process whilst it is in the app.
An easier way would be to set up a web cam overhead above the phone.
You can take a screenshot by pressing both hardware buttons simultaneously (power at the top and home at the bottom). You can then mail the images or sync to get them onto the computer. If you need to show the application in action, not just static screens, you could separate the assets and animate in Flash.
Apple does this with iPhones at their keynote speeches and at WWDC all the time. However, it seems that they have "special" iPhones; some presenters use the camera-over-the-iPhone approach and some have direct iPhone-to-video connections. Regardless, this is not currently possible on an iPhone that you haven't jailbroken. Your best bet is to simulate it.
I know there are emulators, but is this good enough? If someone is serious about iPhone development, do they absolutely need an iPhone?
Just my personal opinion: if you're serious it means that you're committed to quality of your product. If you're committed to quality there is no way to deliver a product without actually launching it on the target platform :)
As noted in other posts you'll have tough time testing the multi-touch screen and other aspects of the hardware on your emulator.
Don't forget that most types of iPhone apps also work on the iPod Touch, which is a one time cost and no monthly fees. Even network apps work if the iPod Touch is connected to WiFi.
During development of my first iPhone app, I wrote code that worked fine on the iPhone Simulator, but which did not work on the device. So I would say "Yes, you definitely need to test on an actual device."
The simulator is not an emulator. It is not running the actual iPhone OS; it is running a set of Mac OS X libraries that are very similar, but not identical, to iPhone OS. The simulator is great for debugging and saving time during the code-and-test cycle, so you will use it a lot more than the device, but a device is indispensible.
You really do need to touch-and-feel your app on a real device. A UI that works great while pointing and clicking with a mouse might be terrible when used with thumbs and fingers. If there is any text entry, you need to feel how painful it is to type using the onscreen keyboard, to determine whether it makes sense to provide alternative data-entry methods.
There are also significant performance differences between the simulator and actual devices. You need to test with the oldest (slowest) device you want to support to verify it is not too slow, doesn't run out of memory, etc.
As others have suggested, an iPod Touch is also sufficient, so the cost of a device isn't huge. Also, try to find beta testers with a variety of different models.
Necessary: How the app handles in your hands is critical to something like the iPhone. you cannot tell how it will feel to use when plastered straight in front of you in the emulator on a big screen.
If you cannot hold it you won't be getting the true user experience.
If you need to learn Obj-C, go with the emulator for a while until you learn the ropes and save the expense for later. But yes, eventually you will need an iPhone for final testing. How long you can wait will depend on the features that your app uses, If all you are doing is button presses, you can wait a long time. If you are dragging, using location services, etc., you'll need a device earlier in the development cycle.
Are you trying to convince yourself or your boss? ;-)
I'd say you need one. Emulation of such a new device can only go wrong. Plus don't forget the tactile aspects.
The iPod touch is a reasonable substitute provided you are not using:
GPS, BlueTouch or Camera - the iPod touch doesn't have these
Cellular network - although the iPod touch has WiFi, the latency of a cellular network is way way higher than that of a wifi network. If you are doing anything like designing a custom protocol for your application, you will want to check real-world performance - and if you do this too late in the development cycle, you will be in for an unpleasant surprise.
Whether you develop on the iPod touch or on the iPhone, you absolutely must have a device. This is not optional! The simulator is good, but it is not perfect, and there is no substitute for having a device which correctly indicates performance, screen resolution, brightness, form factor and all the other factors that you will need to consider in your application.
If you buy an iPod touch, you will probably end up getting an iPhone too. I'd just go straight for the iPhone. That way you can use it as your main phone, and get a real feel for how the platform behaves and what an application needs to do to make it great.
Kind-of "yes".
Just download iPhone SDK (it's easy and free) and check out the emulator that is in there. You'll see whether that suits your needs or not. The emulator is not indicative of real hardware performance, there's no touch input, some quirks might be different, some things can not work, etc.
The iPhone Simulator makes it easy to test your applications using the power and convenience of your desktop or laptop computer. Although, your development computer may not simulate complicated touch events, such as multifinger touches, the Simulator lets you perform pinches. To perform a pinch, hold Option while tapping on the Simulator screen.
I'd say it depends on the kind of application you are developing. For a successful iPhone app, one which is properly integrated on the system, you are going to need to be able to test your tactile interface. That's hardly accomplished with the Emulator.
So, my answer is Yes, you do need an iPhone to develop iPhone apps. Fortunately, if you cannot afford one, an iPod Touch (200 bucks) is a very competent replacement. The underlying hardware is pretty much the same.
Necessary. If you plan to develop a successful product it needs to be one the end users (not just the developers) find easy to use.
The best way to do that would be to load your app on an iPhone then take it to various people and ask them to use it while you watch them to see if they experience any issues.
Users can get mighty creative in trying to do things a developer never intended - just ask any support tech.
Unless you're app is going to sell for less then $500 total it's a relatively small investment to build a quality app.
If you are serious about development, an iPhone (or iPod touch) is a must. However, the official SDK comes with a very complete "iPhone simulator". This will allow you getting a feel for Objective C and the entire development workflow. The SDK requires Leopard.
You don't need a Mac for this. You can use OSX86 on your PC, either installed on and booted from disk or through VmWare.
It works. In fact, you can even synch the iPhone through Leopard running in vmWare.
Now, testing on a real iPhone is a necessity because of performance, memory usage etc. Also you need it for the entire authentification procedure, getting the keys etc. (if you want to sell your stuff on the Appstore), testing this really requires an iPhone.
If you buy an iPod touch, you will
probably end up getting an iPhone too.
I'd just go straight for the iPhone.
That way you can use it as your main
phone, and get a real feel for how the
platform behaves and what an
application needs to do to make it
great.
I absolutely agree with this.
If you are seriously developing an iPhone application - for fun or for profit - you will have to run it on a real iPhone to test out compatibility and usability at some point. Since you going to have to get one at some point, you may as well get one now. Don't go for half measures. An iPod Touch may be [significantly] cheaper to start with, but will be money wasted when you go and get your iPhone. (Of course, if you are planning an app that runs on the iPhone as well as the iPod Touch, then you MUST test it on both. You cannot assume that if it is good on one it must be good on the other).
Also, by having an iPhone from day one, you can familiarize yourself with its user interface, its norms and the common metaphors the apps use. That will heavily feed into your own application design process, and make sure that your app looks, feels, and works like a first class iPhone citizen.
From experience developing on other mobile platforms, once you get to a certain point, it really is best to have a physical device to test on. If this is something that you would also be using yourself, if it much easier to get some real world type of testing by using the application out and about.
I also think it helps one to understand the platform better by having the device or devices you are targeting with your app,
if you are going to develop native apps for the iphone, I would say get an iphone or ipod touch to target. emulators are good, but eventually you will need to target the real thing. if you are developing web specific content there are lots of things you can do without it (there are some great dev videos free from apples dev site which will only cost you a sign up) but eventually I would think you would still want to test with the real deal
Get a cheap used iPod touch, develop, get money, buy an iPhone 5.
I'm a nokia dev now, I'm thinking of going to iPhone, Actually I have the Mac to work, just the device itself ;)
I've tried iPhoney and compared to my iPhone (Mark 1) it's not the same, it's close - but not close enough to rely on if the interface is of importance to you.
You absolutely need the real device. The performance difference between the simulator and the actual iPhone/iPod Touch hardware is huge. Code that will run nice and fast in the simulator can easily turn out to be too slow to be usable on the real thing. Also the API provided by the simulator is not 100% identical to the real thing, so code that works fine in the sim, may not work on the device. The only way to know for sure is to test often on the actual device.
As others have mentioned, the iPod touch works well as a development device. So if you don't need any of the features of the iPhone, it's a good, cheaper, alternative.