Goal

To get a cable that will allow me to plug my jailbroken iPhone 3G running the 3.0 firmware into a composite video television to view movies without having to buy the $50 Apple Brand AV cable with authentication chip

Summary

  • Attempt 1 : Fail : I attempted the iapd patch/replace process described in various different places on the internet using a Dealextreme A/V cable SKU 24871 with no luck. I was able to get audio but no video.
  • Attempt 2 : Fail : I attempted the iapd patch/replace process using a Dealextreme A/V cable SKU 20278 and had partial success. I was able to get rid of the popup message and get video to display on my TV but video playback would pause every 17 seconds, it would not play back continuously.
  • Attempt 3 : Success : After learning of phoenix3200’s success on January 4th 2010, I installed the Resupported app and tested with both cables (SKU 20278 and 24871). Both now work, video and audio, continuously playing without pause.

Successful Method

Source 1 Source 2

This method requires no modification of files on your iPhone (e.g. the iapd file). If you’ve already modified your iapd file, go ahead and revert it back to the way it was before.

  1. Purchase a third party cable. I’ve tested with two cheap Dealextreme cables, SKU 20278 and 24871 and both worked.
  2. Install the “Resupported” App on your jailbroken phone. This can be done by going into Cydia, and searching for Resupported. The App costs $1.99. You can also install a cracked version which will work for 5 days here
  3. Respring or turn your iPhone off and back on. I tested without respringing and it did not work.
  4. Plug your cable in, go to the media player and play a movie
  5. You’ll be prompted with “Display on TV?”, select Yes iphone-2010-01c.png
  6. You’re video should now play continuously (without pausing) on your TV with audio. I’ve tested and confirmed this worked with my setup.

Partially Successful Method

Source 1 Source 2

This method, when combined with the right cable as described below, will suppress the “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone” popup message, and allow you to view video on your television. This method, however, is only a partial solution since the playback of video pauses every 17 seconds, requiring you to hit play every 17 seconds.

  1. Purchase a thirdparty cable from Deal Extreme. Other people have tested cables with SKU 20278, 14395, and 14393 and reported success though I can’t confirm that yet since I don’t have one of these cables.
  2. Find a television that accepts a composite RCA video input that you’ve tested with some other source (like a DVD or VCR player) and have confirmed works
  3. Plug your cable’s yellow RCA plug into the TV’s composite video jack, the cables red and white RCA plugs into the left and right audio jacks on your TVs audio input, and the cables iPhone plug into your iPhone’s jack (and optionally the cables USB plug into a USB port that provides power)
  4. Go to the orange iPod app in your iPhone and try to play a movie
  5. This should fail due to apple locking out third party cables with the 3.0 Firmware upgrade.
    • If your iPhone plays the movie, you can hear the audio coming from your TV, but the video displays on your iPhone, not on the TV, and there is no message popped up on your iPhone saying “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone”, then you likely have the wrong cable. This is what I experienced when I was using the Dealextreme cable SKU 24871
    • If your iPhone plays the movie, you can hear the audio coming from your TV but the video displays on your iPhone, not on the TV, and you get a popup message on your iPhone saying “This accessory is not made to work with iPhone” then you likely have the correct cable. This is what I experienced when I was using the Dealextreme cable SKU 20278. While testing this cable before applying the hack described below I did briefly (a few seconds) get the video to display on the TV. Then the message popup came up and the video went back to the iPhone.
  6. If you’ve experienced the popup message described above then continue with the hack described below. iphone-2010-01b 003.png
  7. Jailbreak your phone if it isn’t already (jailbreaking one’s phone is beyond the scope of this page)
  8. Download this hacked “iapd” file which can be found here http://www.2shared.com/file/6511223/3592322d/iapd.html or here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AXPVO33B (Referenced in the Dealextreme forum listed above and sinfuliphone.com forums respectively)
    • Alternatively, you can just patch your existing iapd file.
      1. Using iphonebrowser or scp download the stock/factory default iapd file from your iPhone located at “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IAP.framework/Support”
      2. Obtain the binary patching tool xdelta (downloads here)
      3. Download the iapd.xdelta patch file attached to this page
      4. Apply the binary patch to your stock iapd file to create the new iapd file. Here’s an example using the Windows XP version of xdelta 
        # iapd is the stock file you downloaded from your iphone
# iapd.xdelta is the patch file linked above
# iapd.new is the new iapd file which xdelta will create for you
xdelta3.0u.x86-32.exe -d -s iapd iapd.xdelta iapd.new
  9. Backup your existing stock iapd file on your iPhone. This can be done by connecting in with iphonebrowser or scp and renaming the file “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IAP.framework/Support/iapd” to something like “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IAP.framework/Support/iapd.BAK”
    • You could also just download a copy of your stock iapd file onto your computer and keep it safe there. It’s up to you.
  10. Upload your new iapd file which you’ve downloaded from the links above or created with the xdelta patch above onto your iPhone
    • This can be done by uploading the file using iphonebrowser or scp into the directory “/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/IAP.framework/Support/”, overwriting your original iapd file if you didn’t rename it.
  11. Shutdown your iPhone. Contrary to what other sites say, I’ve tested and confirmed that you do not need to shut the phone off by holding down the home and power buttons until the phone shuts off, you can shut it down as you normally would by using standard red swipe button on the screen
  12. Power up your iPhone
  13. Find a television that accepts a composite RCA video input that you’ve tested with some other source (like a DVD player) and have confirmed works
  14. Plug your cable into the TV’s composite video, and left and right audio, and into your iPhone (and optionally into a USB port that provides power
  15. Go to the orange iPod app in your iPhone and play a movie
  16. Your iPhone will no longer pop up the message described above. Instead the iPhone will display a static image of the beginning of the film, or the cover of the film, and on the TV the video will play pausing every 17 seconds. I’ve personally tested this process and experienced success except for the every-17-second-pause problem.

References