From allpinout's website, "The serial connection uses a standard 19200 baud 8N1 protocol (the speed can be increased up to 57600 but tends to become unstable)."

Wonder if this is sufficient for a Tactrix cable? I remember when the iPhone came out, they talked about all the great accessories for medical use (EKG monitor or something). I would imagine Apple had planned for this type of data transfer needed in a connector.

 

Wouldn't need to connect it physically if tactrix could design a wifi cable or wifi usb adapter...I'm all for this idea...also I doubt that our evo ecu's communicate any faster than 19700 baud...most likely much slower

 

Yes, to datalog you would need to connect it to the USB port on either the 1.3U or 2.0 cable. Flashing wouldn't be an issue, but remote data logging would be. However, with the 2.0 Tactrix cable you can have remote data logging inside the cable with the microSD port, so you can log like that, look at it on a card reader on the IPad or your laptop, then make changes and flash. I don't see an issue with reading or flashing with an IPad, just have to get a programmer to write the code to adapt the basic OSX version of ECUFlash and or EVOscan over to the IPad.

 

not gonna lie that's pretty dope. I wonder if the 3G ipads are still locked down from apple? Sucks being limited to bandwith.

 

A "use" for an "Ipad" preposterous.

 

Not quite that easy; different processor/architecture, and more importantly, dramatically different user interface (from both a use, and API, perspective). For example, forget about tooltips; there's no such thing as "hovering" on a touchscreen device. That's a small thing, but the small things add up (and there's a lot of little cases like that).

It's a non-trivial port, and since Colby doesn't appear to be maintaining the OSX EcuFlash port anyway (donour did the original version), I suspect the chances of seeing EcuFlash on an iPad or iPhone are pretty slim. EvoScan would probably be mindbogglingly painful to port to OSX, although WinMo would probably be doable; that's for Hamish to say.

(Bluesky thinking: If I were building something like this, I'd probably base it around a similar design to OP2.0, but add a wifi chipset, implement rudimentary ad-hoc networking and an HTTP-based API, and you'd be all set to start developing a client for just about any platform you'd like, including Windows or MacOS; no USB cable required. Bluetooth would be another way to do it, like acamus did for his BlueMUT project, although Bluetooth networking support is pretty crappy and/or non-existent on a few popular phones.)

Personally, I'd go with a netbook in the glovebox. Noone telling what you can and can't run on it, and support for all the software you need for logging and flashing.

 

IMO this whole idea is just extra stupid and full of fail.

You could build a whole car pc setup, touchscreen and all for LESS than the cost of an ipad.

No restrictions, any OS you want.

 

Also, there seems to be a bit of confusion about the iPod dock interface; let me save everyone the trouble of going down that road by telling you now that it's not going to be usable in the way that you'd probably like.

Yes, there's a serial interface (and in recent iPhone OS versions, you're actually allowed to use it), but all you get is TX/RX; no flow control, etc. So, that's not going to work for a 1.3U cable (I don't know enough about the wire protocol for 2.0 to comment); you could reasonably design a cable that worked properly without RTS and friends, but now you don't get to use EcuFlash. Bummer.

So, you move along to the USB interface. Oh, so sorry: you're not allowed to touch that, it's Apple's toy. This is somewhat less of an issue on a jailbroken phone, but that's not something you'd be able to turn into a product. Even on a jailbroken phone, this would be a "non-trivial" implementation; a lot of work to produce fragile software for a niche product on a single phone.

Which means you're back to wi-fi. That's probably your best bet for any Apple device to talk to the OBD-II port on a car; witness the fact that any of the products you see in the App Store require the purchase of a wi-fi interface for plugging into the car (Innovate has an interface to their bus for the iPhone, which works over wi-fi; Rev does OBD-II over wi-fi, etc). And, as an added bonus, just about any modern smartphone will work with it, so when Android takes over the world and iPhone OS is merely a curious historical footnote, you can keep using it. See my "bluesky thinking" note above for how I'd approach something like this, if I was Colby and were thinking about OP3.0.

 

The chances for an IPhone/Ipad app are resonable with limitations. I don't see you reflashing with an iPhone or iPad, but data logging on the other hand is quite possible.

I am looking into it, but I am involved with another project at the moment.

 

Any news yet about a mount kit for the evo yet. I bought a evo without the cd player and rather have an ipad for obvious reasons.

 

im sorry but that is so ugly. Why would anybody replace thier radio with that

 

Nothing says I'm ghetto, like having a 20" flatscreen mounted to your dash...

 

I agree! I would be happier if I could log and flash from my Droid

 

I would also be willing to pay for a solution like this. I am an iPhone developer but I would need the source code to start a project like this.

 

I would contribute also if someone where to develop an app. for the iphone.