iOS/Windows/Mac: Whether your webcam is broken or you just don’t have one, you can still video chat with the aid of your iDevice. A clever app called iWebcam repurposes your mobile’s camera for the job.
Getting iWebcam set up is straightforward:
- Download the app from the iTunes App Store. (It will cost you $5.49.)
- Visit the iWebcam site and download and install the drivers for your operating system (Windows or OS X).
- Launch the iWebcam app on your iDevice and open up a webcam-enabled program on your computer (such as Skype).
- Select your iDevice as the webcam source and you’re good to go!
Pretty clever. In my tests, everything worked beautifully. I installed the drivers and iWebcam popped up in Skype no problem. Some people have noted that a restart was required. Others have had trouble getting the faux-webcam to show up in other apps. I couldn’t get it to display in Photo Booth, but that may be Apple-related. Other apps worked just fine.
The quality was surprisingly good, too. Video was far smoother than my regular web cam and the quality was superior as well. Dropouts occurred for brief seconds in a bad Wi-Fi area, but other than that it worked great.
Want to do this on Android? Check out IP Webcam.
iWebcamera ($5.49) [Drahtwerk via Locker Gnome]
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.