Apr

Fix for third party (non-OEM by Apple) composite AV cable - connect iPod Touch/iPhone to TV

written by cail • posted in How-To • 8,355 views • 3 comments

Apple is playing monopoly. I have to buy everything from him to make them work! I don't want to do that!

It is said that before iPhone firmware 3, 3rd party composite AV cables found on eBay worked beautifully with the system. But, a firmware update at the end of 2009 from Apple prevents those cable being used by the system.

But two weeks ago, I bought a cable anyway ($3 for the cable, $3 for the power adapter, free shipping from Hong Kong; much cheaper than the listed price $50 - before shipping/tax/without the charger), because I strongly believe that there is always a way out!

When the cable arrived (it is cheap but the quality is very good), I noticed immediately that the cable is not support on my iPhone with firemware 3.1.2 - I saw a pop-up on the screen! OK, it's the time for some Google magic.

Before reading the rest part of this post, please understand that to hack the system, the iPhone must be jailbreaked! Try blackra1n!

First, I found there is a Cydia software called resupported, which costs $1.99 and claims to support any unsupported cords. Well, it costs me $$ - I decided to do further digging ...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TiYIIvylAI]

Finally, I located the video above, which has everything I need to make my cheap cable work and it DID!

My quick summary of the video

download a file from http://is.gd/bEHdk (the file called iapd - my guess this is the version used in previous firmware which still supports non-OEM cables)
open WinSCP or FileZilla or Fugu or any other file transfer clients support SFTP protocol; make sure the WiFi of your jailbreaked iPhone is on and find its IP address
login with root account (default password is alpine); go to
```
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IAP.framework/Support/
```
change the original lapd file there to another name (for example, iapd.original) and
```
chmod -x iapd.original
```
upload the downloaded iapd file into that directory, make sure the file name is iapd and
```
chmod +x iapd
```
install a Cydia application called "TVOUT2" (not TVOUT)
plug the 3rd party cable into the iPod Touch/iPhone, connect it to the composite port of the TV, run the application and ENJOY (the power adapter is not necessary for TV-out)

Here is the screen capture of the TVOUT2 app. Very easy to use - Just tv on and tv off. While TV-out is working, I see a number 1 pop-up on my TVOUT2 icon.

(screen capture in Free Memory before TV-out)

(screen capture in Free Memory while/after TV-out)

I notice that there is a process called iapd running while TV-out is working, which is why it is very important to change the permission of the uploaded file to 755 by chmod +x.

Later, I tried another Cydia app called "ScreenSplitr" which works with Apple's original AV cables for TV-out (by default, only photo gallery and videos can be TV-out), but it does NOT work with my 3rd party composite cables.

Below are several images showing both my iPhone and my TV. It works beautifully!