Taking a screenshot in iOS is easy. Apple has offered the feature since day one, and as long as you can master the simultaneous pressing of the sleep and home buttons, a screen capture will automatically be deposited into your camera roll. How is it so, then, that taking a video recording of the current screen is so much more difficult? The process tends to involve costly, time-consuming desktop software, but thanks to a little jailbreak app by the name of RecordMyScreen, it needn’t be this way. More details right after the jump!
There are many reasons why you might like to capture a video of your device’s screen. If you’re playing a game, for example, and wish to demonstrate a certain level, hidden item, or trick shot, you can do so without having to explain everything ad nauseam. Flick over to YouTube, and you’ll find millions of screen recordings of iOS devices running games or using apps, but while the vast majority of those will have taken quite a bit of research and planning, RecordMyScreen makes things a whole lot easier.
The app is the product of a lengthy, collaborative effort between a series of developers, and is touted proudly as the very first free and open source screen recorder for iOS, despite ScreenRecorder for iOS exists, even today, but due to its non open source nature, RecordMyScreen takes the crown. It is capable of running on both jailbroken and non-jailbroken devices, although until it hits the App Store if at all, you’ll need a jailbroken iOS device to get started with the RecordMyScreen. We’re pretty certain Apple will probably reject this one.
As you might expect from such a fledgling, ambitious app, it’s not exactly awash with features; but by the same token, the app seems to have reached a surprising level of maturity this early on. There’s video rotation, support for half our full-size recording, and hardware accelerated direct h.264 encoding right off the bat. The app also offers the ability to capture OpenGL frames, and once you’ve finished prepping your recording, you can easily save to the camera roll or open with an app of your choosing.
It’s worth pointing out that, while it works with devices running iOS 5 or higher, it won’t run on any Retina iPad. Still, for a free, new, and an open source app, it’s in very good shape indeed, so why not grab it by heading over to the BigBoss repo?
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