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Intro: I have a Denon S-52 internet radio with an iPod/iPhone dock (the older 12V kind, so charging is not possible with newer devices but audio/control data is passed through). The radio has an external clickwheel-like control that worked beautifully with iPod nano/classic etc. Since the iPhone/iPod touch no longer have any clickwheel functionality, the signals from the Denon clickwheel no longer have any effect while playing (ie no seeking), but can navigate through some menus on iOS, and play/pause works. The few clickwheel apps I've tried obviously ignore the external signals.

Questions: How hard would it be for someone with no iOs programming experience (just C/C++/C#, plus an objective C tutorial from lynda.com) to develop a basic audio player app that would accept signals from the external Denon clickwheel to seek within an audio file (for my own use, at least at first)? I'm assuming this is possible because the signals are sometimes processed (as mentioned above), but I'd be happy to be proven wrong before I waste a lot of time and effort. I also assume a standard $99 iOS developer membership would be enough (since the device itself is already MFi)? Or perhaps an app that has this feature already exists?

newenglander
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2 Answers2

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How hard would it be for someone with no iOs programming experience (just C/C++/C#, plus an objective C tutorial from lynda.com) to develop a basic audio player app that would accept signals from the external Denon clickwheel to seek within an audio file (for my own use, at least at first)?

Nearly impossible. It's not just the challenge of figuring out how to access the dock connector and interpret the signals of interest. The real problem is that you want to use those signals to control music that's playing, and you're probably thinking of trying to control the iPod application rather than writing your own music player. Communicating between two apps is difficult at best, and probably not possible if the target app (iPod) doesn't provide a mechanism for external control. And the fact that you're new to the platform doesn't make any of this easier.

Your best hope is probably to file a bug with Apple requesting this feature and hope that they'll add it for you.

Caleb
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  • Thanks for the sobering answer. Yes, I wanted to control the iPod application rather than writing my own music player. Thanks for the tip about contacting Apple, perhaps I'll contact Denon as well. Other device manufacturer provide apps for their customers. – newenglander Aug 02 '11 at 14:49
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I was able to do this by jailbreaking my iOS device, which enabled me to access the serial port for iPod Access Protocol communication at /dev/tty.iap. Then I could incorporate something like the functions found in this iPhone Serial Port Tutorial (check archive.org if the link no longer works) to read the incoming signals and respond accordingly.

Update: An even better solution seems to be to write a tweak hooking into the iPodUI private framework and intercept the commands directly, and then message the Music player about what to do (see this post for more details).

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newenglander
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