Video Recording on the iPhone

There are many iPhone applications available, but so far, no one has come out with an official application that does video recording. To get that functionality, you must jailbreak the iPhone and install one of the unofficial video recorder apps, and some type of networking so you can transfer the video files back to your computer.

The main problem with jailbreaking the iphone is that it is no longer in a standard, supportable condition afterward, and so things may not work as expected. I found that my syncing setup was all messed up, and I was basically starting from square one in terms of settings. There are some things it still does not do well, like syncing to iPhoto. However, there are enough benefits to a jailbroken phone to try it out, and hopefully (haven’t tried it yet!) it can be restored if it no longer seems worth all the effort.

1. Jailbreak the iPhone

   1. Download the latest PwnageTool from this page. Direct download links are shown about midway down the page. Or you can get it from iPhone Hacks.com

      Check all the versions and what they support carefully. This is not one of those times when you should wing it. Read the instructions.

   2. Download and unrar the appropriate iPhone Bootloader file from this page. You’ll probably want the latest one (The current one is 4.6 at this time), but Pwnage Tool will let you know which.
   3. Run Pwnage Tool. Follow the instructions in the guide PwnageTool 2.0.1 Guide For Jailbreaking and Unlocking EDGE iPhones With v2.0 Firmware using Mac OSX

2. Install Cydia and Netatalk

3. Once the phone is back up and running, you will see an icon for Cydia on the bottom of your home screen. Run Cydia and install Cycorder and Netatalk. A good walkthrough on how to use Cydia is here, but you probably won’t need it. Although Cycorder and iPhone Video Recorder seem to be the frontrunners in the video recording category, after reading several reviews, I decided to try Cycorder first.
4. After installing netatalk, you will need to restart. You won’t see netattalk on your Home screen, but when you restart, the iPhone will show up in the shared area in the Finder on the Mac.

   

5. Sign in to your iPhone per the instructions in the netatatalk Connection Guide. More information on netatalk is here. It is a good idea to change the password as shown here. You will have to install Mobile Terminal (using Cydia) to do this.
6. Look for the Cycorder icon in your Home screen. Once you shoot some videos, they will be located at “home/Media/Videos/” as shown in the image above.