Using the undocumented MPTVOutWindow class and iPod A/V cables, it’s possible to program an iPhone to have television output. What’s cool about this is that since the iPhone be both the game platform and a controller, since it contains Wiimote-like accelerometer features. Using the MPTVOutWindow class, the makers of Moto Chaser were able to tweak a bit of their code and hack together a demonstration of the iPhone’s video-out capabilities in only an afternoon. iPhone hacker Erica Sadun has a writeup of the whole process, including some of the development challenges, over at Ars Technica:
When Morrison approached senior programmer Mark Levin, he had basically one set of instructions. “Make it work before lunch.” Freeverse had very little time to allocate to putting together the demo. In the end, the entire development effort took about three hours. And, of that time, nearly half was taken up dealing with Xcode provisioning issues, not technical demands from the porting. In the end, they created several build profiles in Xcode including a TV build in addition to their standard Debug and Distribution builds.
The MPTVOutWindow class, though undocumented, is part of the standard iPhone libraries. Erica has posted class documentation and how to go about using MPTVOutWindow in place of the normal UIWindow. There’s no telling if the API will be officially published, removed, or altered in upcoming Apple firmware releases, so keep that in mind and go make something awesome.
Hidden SDK features transform iPhone into TV gaming device
iPhone 2.2 SDK offers undocumented TV-out features
MPTVOutWindow Class Reference
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