iOS and Arduino using the Redpark Cable

A few weeks ago I was minding my own business when I a particular tweet caught my attention:

“$59 Cable Lets You Connect iPhone to Arduino — No Jailbreaking!”

I read the tweet and followed the link to the Make magazine article and immediately started thinking about what could be done with this. Because I had both an iPhone and an Arduino at home it was especially appealing to me and decided to get it. The problem was when the order arrived. Because it was all disassembled I couldn’t get it working. Luckily the good folks at AltLab helped in soldering the RS232 adapter.

And here’s the “Hello World”, having a switch on the iPhone app and controlling a small LED in the Arduino board :-)

Next baby steps: servos.

Resources:

  • http://programmingiphonesensors.com
  • http://developer.apple.com
  • http://blog.makezine.com

iPhone 3G slow with iOS 4.1

If you have a jailbroken iPhone 3G that is sluggish after updating to iOS 4.1 you can try disabling the backgrounds. Because that isn’t configurable you have to hack your way in, here’s how:

0) install ericas utilities, vi and OpenSSH using Cydia
1) SSH in as root@youriphoneip (check your IP via Settings->Networking; use the default password “alpine”)
2) Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
3) Convert the plist we need from binary to xml so you can edit it in a text editor:

plutil -convert xml1 N82AP.plist
4) Edit N82AP.plist file, and change this line:

<key>homescreen-wallpaper</key>
<true/>

to this:

<key>homescreen-wallpaper</key>
<false/>

5) Save the file, respring (maybe reboot).

Hope it helps.

References:
http://thebigboss.org/2010/07/01/3g-on-40-slow