Using an iPhone as a Single-Purpose Webcam

Speaking of Simon Støvring, he wrote a good post back in August about using an old iPhone as a single-purpose webcam with Camo:

Once the Camo app is launched on the iPhone it will keep the iPhone awake, even if the camera is not in use or the video feed has been paused from the Mac app. I like to manually lock the iPhone when I’m not using the webcam. This will prevent the Camo Mac app from having a connection to the iPhone app and use the camera. That’s the equivalent of using one of those webcam covers.

I will only be using the iPhone 6 Plus as a webcam and I will have it permanently mounted to my monitor, so to make it easier to launch the Camo app on the iPhone after the phone have been locked, I put the iPhone into Single App Mode using Apple Configurator and disabled the passcode on the phone. When in Single App Mode (sometimes also referred to as “kiosk mode”), the iPhone will only be able to launch a single app and the app will automatically be launched when the phone is unlocked.

Single App Mode can be enabled using Apple Configurator by plugging your phone into the Mac and selecting Actions → Advanced → Start Single App Mode.... That will make the iPhone supervised meaning that its features can be restricted from elsewhere by installing profiles. After supervision has been enabled, you will be prompted to select the app to be used in Single App Mode.

Via Jason Snell.

★ Monday, 9 May 2022