What’s An Old iPhone Good For?
Facing the inevitable iPhone upgrade this summer — whether it’s on Verizon or not — replacing a two plus year old (has it been that long?) iPhone 3G. But even as I look forward to playing with yet another apple toy — am already wondering what fun can be had with the old model:
- Load it up with remote control apps for the entertainment system.
- Put clock apps and use it as a very expensive alarm clock.
- Load it up camera apps for use in some aerial photography.
- Incorporate it into my Tron costume for the next convention (kidding).
- Jailbreak it. Get familiar with what enterprising app developers are doing outside of Apple’s box.
At this juncture, am seriously tempted by the last option. Certainly there’s intersting stuff going on that Apple would never let see the light if day within its app store, and worry about screwing things up is much less on a non-essential device.
Any other ideas?
I tried jailbreaking my original iPhone way back when, completely out of curiosity at the time. I ended up putting it back to its original config in a few days, because I couldn’t find one app that made jailbreaking worth it to me. But that was a few years ago. Who knows what’s available now, though I suspect it’s mostly the kind of hobbyist hacking that I avoid by having an iPhone in the first place. If I thought the open source hobbyist community had anything to offer me, I’d get an Android phone.
Now, turning the old iPhone into a super-charged remote sounds like a cool idea. It would be even better if the iPhone could control things like my TV and stereo, so I could get rid of my Harmony altogether.
Yeah the universal remote thing hits a wall with any device using infrared… can control the Apple TV, Roku Box and Mac Mini with the iPhone, but can’t turn the television itself on. A little silly.
Certainly the jailbreaking is going to be a mix of fun and frustration (inconsistent UIs, buggy apps, a lot of effort with little result), but am still game.
There is an IR dongle available called the Re (Newkinetix.com) which allows the iPhone to control any device you own.
TONS of uses for an old iPhone besides an iPod.
Via WiFi you can use the iPhone as a VLC remote, or an EyeTV receiver, or a Slingplayer, Slacker Radio, Pandora, Sirius satellite radio, MLB player, HD Radio, etc.
Apps called SecurityCam and WiFiCam allows you to use the iPhone as a web-based security cam, you can view the iPhone video from any web browser.
An app called Tango Remote also allows you to use the iPhone to control the iTunes playlist on your iPad. It needs to be installed on both the iPhone and the iPad. I use it to listen to the iPad with Bluetooth Stereo headphones and select playlists, songs or control pause/playback.
Dude that Re thingie looks cool. You’re gonna make me spend more money…
The security cam idea is a good one. Might set it up to take a time lapse movie of the cats… wonder what they do all day while we’re at work.
[…] days. Battery life, reception, and Face Time will be evaluated over the next few weeks, as well as what to do with the old iPhone. Maybe it will become the most expensive universal remote / cat toy […]