Outputting iPhone Apps to a TV: Moto Chaser Demo

Last week, Ars Technica had reported that the latest iPhone 2.2 SDK included an new undocumented framework that allows iPhone/iPod touch applications to output to a television rather than to the native screen.

The MPTVOutWindow class allows your iPhone to send its video to a connected TV rather than to the built-in screen. Intended to be used with movies, the unpublished class creates a live video feed that is sent out through the iPhone's connector port. End-users will need to buy a video adapter or cable to use this functionality.

While a couple of interesting demos had been thrown together, Ars then asked Freeverse about adding the functionality to a version of their Moto Chaser [App Store] game. The result is an impressive (though unsupported) demo:

Outputting to video-out resulted in a performance hit, so the TV version of the game can only reach approximately 20 frames per second. The game normally runs at 26 fps on the native screen. Freeverse notes that this was all thrown together in a few hours, so there is room for improvement. It's not clear if and when Apple might allow developers to officially release Apps using this new functionality.