Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Multimedia, Cool tools, Hacks, iPhone
Use your iPhone as an XBMC remote
I have to say, as much as everyone whined about the lack of an iPhone SDK, I am nothing but impressed at how far people are bending over backwards to provide functionality to the iPhone. Yes it makes you wonder how much we could do if there was an SDK, but on the other hand, developers are really showing us just how much can be done with just a browser.Take, for example, the Xbox Media Center iPhone Remote. If you're still using your old Xbox as a media center, Tom Robinson has devised a setup that will let you actually log in to your Xbox from your iPhone, essentially using the iPhone as a very expensive (but very functional) remote control. Basically, you FTP the code onto your Xbox (or just install it over the web), and then login to the Xbox's IP from MobileSafari, and you can use it to browse media, view information on playing media, and even use transport and audio controls. Wild.
My only question is how secure this is-- without having used it, it seems like all you need to get full access to the Xbox is the IP address. There may be something in the code that confines access to a local network, but if you can install this script from the web, it seems like you could also log in to control an Xbox from afar after it's been installed. At any rate, it's a really interesting idea, and just another example of how creative people are getting in developing functionality on the iPhone.
Thanks, Dave!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris said 5:27PM on 7-30-2007
XBMC just has a built in web server that can accept basic commands passed to it with a "?=" type of syntax. The built in web front end basically is a bunch of buttons with link formatted this way, I believe. It's secure in the sense that there isn't much you can do but destroy someones XBMC, which isn't particularly hard to restore, especially if the media is located on another server. You could gain access to their SMB login info, which I suppose could be of use. You would still need access to their LAn through the firewall or direct connection, though.
This makes me want an iPhone much more since I gave cable up last year and use XBMC for a few hours of TV a day.
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Regek said 6:04PM on 7-30-2007
There are only security issues if you allow people from the Internet to access your Xbox's web console. You would have to go to significant effort to open that up.
Thus, it's only really a security problem if you're irresponsible about it or don't have any idea what you're doing. Chances are good that if you set up XBMC, you at least have some concept of networking and how to limit access to it.
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Kaido said 7:04PM on 7-30-2007
Mike, you also have the option of downloading a zip file and manually FTPing the files over. XBMC has the option of grabbing scripts off the Internet; that's basically all this script is doing, except in reverse - you point the script to the Xbox.
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Tom said 9:12PM on 7-30-2007
I'm the Tom Robinson who wrote this thing. First of all, let me say thanks for posting this. I hope lots of people find it useful. It's open source (obviously since it's HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but also it's released under the BSD license) so you're welcome to modify it, etc. Join us on the macrumors forums if you want to help out:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=3980793
Second, simply installing XBMC iPhone Remote via EITHER manual installation or web installer will NOT open up any security holes that aren't already in the XBMC webserver. Enabling the web server in the first place WILL. In this respect, there's no difference between web install and manual install, except that web install takes advantage of those holes to perform a harmless installation.
I've written up a detailed summary of how web installer works and what the issue with the XBMC webserver is here:
http://tlrobinson.net/blog/?p=15
Thanks,
Tom
p.s. I didn't work on this alone, David Twelves has helped out, as well as some others on the macrumors.com forums. The web installer code is based on work by LiquidIce.
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michelle21 said 8:07PM on 8-23-2007
XBMC, never thought of that one, I will have to test it with our coming really soon application, doesn't xbmc have a upnp server, if so we can access it and no further moding on the xbox.
http://mooncatventures.blogspot.com as seen on ehomeupgrade.com
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