Filed under: iPod Family, Software, Hacks, How-tos, Odds and ends, iPhone
TUAW Responds: Reader requests remote iPhone Snapshot util
TUAW reader Patrick McCarron read my Mac-based file catcher post and wrote in to ask if I could set up a utility to automatically trigger screen shots from the Macintosh. Sure, Patrick. You've got it.
Like SnapNGo, AutoSnap grabs the contents of the screen and serves it via Bonjour. Unlike SnapNGo, AutoSnap automatically names and serves its files and can be triggered from your Mac using FileCatcher. Tap on the "File Throw Auto Snap" server and your iPhone snaps a picture and shares it to your Mac. The file appears on your desktop.
So then, I got to thinking. Since SnapNGo is sending pictures, why not adapt Apple's Picture Sharing Browser sample code to work with my updated protocol? So I grabbed a fresh copy of the code, and did a bunch of code monkey stuff to it, and produced a new utility: Erica Picture Sharing Browser--because I really stink at coming up with good names.
EPSB works more or less the same way that File Catcher does--tap on the server name to trigger a screen shot--but it also displays the picture in a fancy NSImageView and, favorite bit, offers a check box that allows you to optionally save the screen shot to your desktop. It uses the same automatic names produced by SnapNGo but you can easily rename the files once they're there.
Thanks for the suggestion, Patrick. I hope you enjoy the results.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
koreyel said 5:11PM on 11-02-2007
Programmers are the new magicians of the 21st century.
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Patrick McCarron said 5:19PM on 11-02-2007
Thanks Erika! I can't wait to give it a whirl tonight!
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rp said 5:20PM on 11-02-2007
Methinks someone is a little suspicious of their SO... stalking util anyone?
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Patrick from Philly said 5:47PM on 11-02-2007
Can you force the iPhone to remotely open the "camera" app? If so, you could do that and then remotely grab a screenshot, which would be really interesting.
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Josh Kirklin said 6:11PM on 11-02-2007
It would be awesome if you could keep taking screenshots and sending them as a video feed to the mac, as a sort of display mirrored onto your screen. Then you could switch the iphone to camera and use it as a webcam in ichat or something!
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Justin said 6:12PM on 11-02-2007
How about MobileSFTP? :)
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SuitCase said 6:27PM on 11-02-2007
Can you somehow manipulate input on the phone? Imagine if you took that code and had it send a new screenshot every second or two, and if you clicked on certain areas of the screen, stuff would happen. Like VNC.
If it supported keyboard use, that would be a very useful app - and probably something you could charge for, too.
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Scott Froschauer said 6:30PM on 11-02-2007
Wow! I'm so amazed by what Erica has been churning out!
I'm starting to dabble in the command line stuff on the phone (the Bonjour file sharing pushed me over the edge) but every time I try to run one of the apps I get a permission denied response. I'm new to this command line stuff. Any suggestions anyone.
Thanks!
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Justin said 6:34PM on 11-02-2007
To further support someone who is interested in writing a MobileSFTP-type program, there is a gui wrapper for sftp called Fugu, for mac, and the source (.xcodeproj) can be found at http://rsug.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/fugu/
I don't know how easy it is to shoehorn something like this into iPhone-code, but it'd be nice to have quick up/download (s)FTP capabilities w/o having to muck around in Mobile terminal.
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Rafita said 7:36PM on 11-02-2007
Maybe a gcaldaemon for the iPhone would be the coolest thing to implement.
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Ken said 8:04PM on 11-02-2007
Hopefully a PC version will also be written.
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Matt said 12:06AM on 11-03-2007
I guess I'm new to your command line utilities, but I can't seem to get this program to work on anything outside of Term-vt100. As soon as I hit the home button my phone no longer shows up on the Picture Sharing Browser, or the FileCatcher. I'm doing something wrong here.
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Aaron Nelsen said 1:47AM on 11-03-2007
@Matt: I'm new to this too, but what I've been doing is using Terminal on my Mac and logging into my iPod touch via SSH. Which goes something like...
ssh root@IP_ADDRESS
(then it asks for your password)
Once logged in type /var/root/bin/autosnap
Then you can use FileCatcher to snap pictures at your leisure.
Hope that helps!
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danzigmessiah said 11:44AM on 11-03-2007
EPicS Browser? or something like that.
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AudioBear said 2:21PM on 11-03-2007
Erica I just wanted to say how good AutoSnap and the 'Erica Picture Broswer' is. Such cheeky cleverness should not go unheralded.
Keep it up
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Jack said 2:09PM on 11-03-2007
Shouldn't you blur the IP address?
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Shunnabunich said 2:52PM on 11-03-2007
Is there a way to read the iPod/iPhone's name (i.e. as it would show up in iTunes) remotely from the Mac? If so, then you could have a list with any available Touch devices and a big ol' pretty Capture button, relegate the IP address and port info to an "advanced" view and have a user-selectable save destination for the screenshots, and you'd basically have a really awesome, dead simple screen capture app anyone could use. Maybe call it something like Podshot. :P
Actually, on a related note, is there any way to enable video out functionality outside of video playback? Imagine being able to record video demos of your iPod/iPhone software. Mmm. (Sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere!)
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Mars said 2:56PM on 11-03-2007
@Jack, The IP address in the pic is what's called a class C internal IP address. Probably 1/4 of all personal computers have an IP address of 192.168.something.something. That IP address is not directly accessable to outside networks.
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David said 4:14PM on 11-03-2007
Thanks Erika! Thank you for all the contribution, at this point your posts are the only reason I come to tuaw.
By the way, you haven't mentioned mind dojo yet, the game is basically brain training on the iphone, it run incredibly. I can't believe it's a web app. (http://dbelement.com)
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armchairgeek said 5:45PM on 11-03-2007
Thanks Erica! This is a great solution.
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