Secret iPhone video-out features hacked, used for video games

Hey, just because using secret undocumented iPhone SDK calls might get you booted from the App Store doesn't mean it's not a good time -- Ars Technica commissioned Freeverse to mod its Moto Chaser game to use the hidden video-out features in iPhone 2.2, and we have to say the results turned out pretty decent. It's not perfect -- it looks like it only works in landscape mode, and rendering to TV resolutions strains the processor and slows framerates down on all but the faster 2G iPod touch -- but it works, and it's a taste of where iPhone app development could go if Apple ever opens up the gates. Or you could just be Google and do whatever you want, we suppose. Video after the break.

[AMiSH PiRATE @ Dec 5th 2008 3:31PM]

why on earth would apple NOT want to further develop this?

[r3loaded @ Dec 5th 2008 3:33PM]

Because.....this is Apple we're talking about.

Jailbreak your device, live free.

[Chris @ Dec 5th 2008 3:38PM]

Because they want to sell you a $79 adapter that does it for you.

[Lowest Ranked @ Dec 5th 2008 3:43PM]

An adapter would just contain memory buffers for the framerate, like an external graphics card to handle the scaling. So, why bother anyways?

[trainwrecka @ Dec 5th 2008 3:50PM]

THIS IS AWESOME! I hope this comes out. I hate playing the games by moving the phone around, and would much rather look at a stable screen, while using the device for navigation... hello Wii Jr.

[Aaron @ Dec 5th 2008 3:53PM]

No idea why. Some of their competitors' phones already have officially supported TV out functionality.

[Konstantin @ Dec 5th 2008 4:03PM]

Hey, I'll buy the adapter to do something like this. You hear that Apple, I will give you money so you should develop it.

[bob @ Dec 5th 2008 6:39PM]

the iphone sdk is not yet complete, it will be featured

[John @ Dec 5th 2008 7:19PM]

Too bad the resolution is a shitty HVGA (Half of what standard TV programming looks like)

[Imran @ Dec 5th 2008 3:35PM]

Yes, why would Apple want to provide for us a function that Nokia has been providing for so long already....

[ChrisM @ Dec 5th 2008 3:39PM]

Here we go with the "Nokia did it first" posts. Who cares who did it first? Go play your Ngage games on your TV and leave us alone.

[AMiSH PiRATE @ Dec 5th 2008 3:54PM]

ngage references make me smile.

[Jon Doe. @ Dec 6th 2008 5:11AM]

And if this was Microsoft copying Apple you fanbois would be all over them. Hypocrites.

[DirtyVegas @ Dec 5th 2008 3:43PM]

I'm sure someone will figure out soon that this thing can shoot red lasers.

[phanbouy fan fan @ Dec 5th 2008 3:50PM]

pew pew?

[youngstunna @ Dec 5th 2008 4:09PM]

pew pew pew

[thedesolate1 @ Dec 5th 2008 5:24PM]

The one thing that will convince me to buy it. A frickin lazer beam.

[Don Corleone @ Dec 5th 2008 3:45PM]

I'm pretty sure the video adapter Apple sells only works for photos and movies, not games.
I hope I'm wrong, though.

As for Apple not developing this - it's Apple.
The only other reason I can see is that it'll drain your battery faster than a steely dan on high.

[sonicwind @ Dec 5th 2008 3:49PM]

The game was modded to use undocumented APIs to send the video out through the cable.

This is awesome. If you watch the video in HD mode, it looks like the picture is actually quite sharp. Not the polygon count you'd expect in a full fledged console based game, but very nice.

[John Laur @ Dec 5th 2008 4:39PM]

The cable they are using in the video IS the cable Apple sells. I have tried a couple cheap third party ones that claim to work and none actually do for more than a few seconds.

Also the slowdown I believe is probably not due to a resolution problem, but due to the CPU being responsible for copying the framebuffer to the video-out hardware. AFAIK this hardware is part of the h.264 decoder so I'm quite suprised tht they are able to feed it fast enough to achieve this type of frame rate even. (Note that these bits of code would have been Apple's.)

Now they just need to crack into the bluetooth frameworks so we can get wiimotes, PS3 controllers, and bluetooth mice/keyboards working.

Further, I wouldn't be surprised if someone really enterprising managed to get HD out of the things -- component outputs + a programmable RAMDAC and you're basically set. Quite frankly, we're probably past the point where someone should have done this to a Wii already.

[Mike Stuart @ Dec 5th 2008 3:49PM]

The gas pedal on the screen is flipped horizontally from where he appears pressing on the iPhone.

[Cy Starkman @ Dec 5th 2008 3:54PM]

This iphone business is out of control. I would like to see the video out function hacked to work with app screens. It would be interesting seeing like airshare or even iwik up on the "big" screen

[mike @ Dec 5th 2008 3:52PM]

I call fake. This finger is not on the gas button the whole time.

[rock99rock @ Dec 5th 2008 4:31PM]

I thought that at first, but his right thumb is down. Maybe the buttons are rotated counter-clockwise?

[nimro @ Dec 5th 2008 5:17PM]

If you read the article through the "read" link, you would have seen this:

"In the normal game, the gas button is touch controlled to allow you to accelerate. In this demo, the same button is hardwired down so all you need to control is driving. These shortcuts allowed Freeverse to create a working tech demo within their time constraints and really show what the iPhone video out features were capable of."

Please do try and read before you post.

[David @ Dec 5th 2008 3:51PM]

Requested letter to apple:

Dear Apple,

Let us do what we want with a device that we purchased.

Cordially,

non-Apple fanboys

[ILoveApple @ Dec 5th 2008 3:53PM]

ROFL. This won't happen until Steve Jobs dies, and from the looks of things... That won't be too long.

MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

[curtis @ Dec 5th 2008 4:33PM]

This isn't an issue of Apple not letting you do what you want. You are perfectly free to do something like this if you can program it. You just can't sell it (or give it away) on the app store.

Of course, I think that they should document these so-called "secret APIs" and make them available for the devs to use. But that's not really a matter of them letting you do what you want with your property...it's a matter of them not letting you sell something via their online store because you are doing something they told you not to.

[iEye @ Dec 5th 2008 3:52PM]

Ha!

Lets see your shite Nokia do this!


Rank me up boys!!!

[ILoveApple @ Dec 5th 2008 3:56PM]

N93 has been doing this for 3 years. BBQSAUCE.

[bjay @ Dec 5th 2008 3:56PM]

It(Nokia) has been doing it for ages i.e since d day N93 was born i believe

[-slycooper_rocker- (lorddshadow the amazing) psn: shahanasalam @ Dec 5th 2008 6:12PM]

ieye, because of you i mentally low rank everything with an 'i' in front of it. *sigh*

[bjay @ Dec 5th 2008 3:54PM]

Apple Iphone is doing video out thru exploit? why is that it is the jailbreaking teams that always push Apple to give users what should ve being.

[youngstunna @ Dec 5th 2008 4:11PM]

i cant wait to play these low rez games on a 40" hdtv do i can experience all the blocking.

[Rod @ Dec 5th 2008 4:21PM]

I fast-forwarded to see if he beat that asshole biker but no.
Aww.

What a difficult game!

[Jason @ Dec 5th 2008 6:00PM]

From what I understand, this is not an exploit and doesn't require jailbreaking... it's just another part of the SDK that apple hasn't publicly announced or documented. Anyone with the iPhone SDK should be able to build video-out into their app and run it on a regular iPhone, or even theoretically release it to the app store as long as apple doesn't notice. I will probably test this out myself soon, at least to prepare in advance if apple decides to include this in the next SDK release.

[required @ Dec 5th 2008 4:24PM]

Another feature the PSP does much better.

[bjay @ Dec 5th 2008 4:28PM]

PSP is that a GSM phone? Oh wait...............I see

[Saad Rabia @ Dec 5th 2008 5:02PM]

Now only if this works wireless; maybe connect one iPhone to the TV and control it with another iPhone using wifi. :)

[nicmonson @ Dec 5th 2008 5:20PM]

heck, have multiple iPhones sending info to the iPhone plugged into the TV while youre at it. Multiplayer waverunner :)

[computer.dude.28 @ Dec 5th 2008 5:26PM]

Too bad you can't jailbreak the 2nd gen..

[emanuelle @ Dec 5th 2008 5:48PM]

I wanna see safari crash on the big screen.
That never gets old
Nor does the blue lego block with a question mark when I see flash content..... Nothing like the real internet

[Dillon @ Dec 5th 2008 7:00PM]

This is shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels, and I've seen quite a few shops in my time.

[Chizzed @ Dec 5th 2008 7:38PM]

I dunno it does seem like there are some inconsistencies from how the bike is moving, as compared to how he is moving the iPhone. Sometimes he's turning the phone left, and the biker is going straight...

Definitely still sick though.

Now if only they could do this with Crysis...

[Ruben @ Dec 5th 2008 8:51PM]

Huh?

You do know PC's plug into TV's, don't you?

[marty k. @ Dec 5th 2008 8:57PM]

Is it possible to display keynote/ppt presentations on big screen using an iphone?

[Omen_20 @ Dec 5th 2008 10:07PM]

This isnt all that impressive to me besides the fact that it was hacked to work. My PSP does this far better.

[ZeroCorpse @ Dec 6th 2008 10:36AM]

Agreed. And on top of that, the PSP plays games that aren't "tilt to steer" -- Pretty much ALL the iPod touch/iPhone's games are re-skins of the same three gameplay elements (touch here, tilt to maneuver in a path, shake to randomly do something).

[bsltiger @ Dec 19th 2008 12:20AM]

psp does this better, huh? well arent we all lucky that the psp is also a phone.... oh wait.... it isnt....

[kenc29 @ Dec 5th 2008 10:12PM]

Is it just me or do some of you not know that Apple sells a $50 cable for video out. That's what they are using with some undocumented APIs. Who knows, but they may document them in January.

As for the Keynote question. No. You can't use the video cable and do a Keynote presentation because the iPhone doesn't run Keynote. HOWEVER, you can export your Keynote into a Quicktime movie, and run the Quicktime movie with its transitions. I've done that. However, I prefer using my laptop connected to the projector running Keynote, and using the iPhone as a smart remote running Showtime. That's a great app.