Monday, August 23, 2010

Jailbreak your #iPad and use DisplayOut

Do you wish you could show more than just the Keynote or Photos app through your projector cable on your iPad? I did!

We recently had an iPad training session and I really wanted to be able to show the live iPad screen on the projector instead of just showing them screen shots. I heard you could show the live screen if you jailbroke your iPad. So a couple of weeks ago I started looking into the possibility.

I started by talking to a few of the iPhone fans I know. They suggested trying this jailbreak:
http://jailbreakme.com
A quick note: This jailbreak will only work on iOS 3.2.1 and older. The iOS 3.2.2 update patches the PDF flaw that this jailbreak uses.

If you go to the above link from your iPad browser, it will give you the option to jailbreak it right over the web. No fancy tricks, or downloading software and messing with iTunes. It just asks you to swipe on the screen and then it starts the jailbreak. It took me about 2 minutes while it downloaded and ran the jailbreak. Then it asked me to restart my iPad. I got the little Apple logo, and some rainbow colored dots on one edge of the screen. When it restarted everything looked normal but now the Cydia app was installed. Cydia is an app store that you can download (and buy) apps from for your jailbroken device. Don't worry, you can still download/buy them from iTunes as well!

In order to get your live iPad screen to show over the projector you will also need to install an app that will make it possible. We know that iTunes doesn't have an app for that. So you have to look in Cydia. I tried three different apps. The one that worked was $1.99 and is called DisplayOut. You don't actually get an app on your home screen, it just puts a new section into your settings. You can turn the display out on or off, and change a few basic settings. You can see an image of what it looks like here: http://bit.ly/dg8g1n

This worked out great for me, and our training session was awesome! Have Fun!

2 comments:

  1. Bryan, did you try TVout2?

    My boss said he had "tvout or something like that" installed on his ipad, before it had to be downgraded from 3.2.2 and start over...I can't get a compatible version of this TVout2 that will work with IPad OS 3.2.1.
    I have Cydia working but that's as far as I've gotten.

    Now I am wondering if he meant DisplayOut. So you haven't had any trouble with DisplayOut since? Easy to install and to use?

    Thanks,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lorena,

    Yes, I tried TVout2 and it didn't work well at all. It messed up the resolution on the iPad, and I had to restore it to defaults. The DisplayOut works really well. I know you have to pay for it, but it is worth it! :)

    ReplyDelete