In the first part, we discussed a bit about the Accelerometer concept in Mac laptops and how to set up an anti-theft alarm using the principle.

In the second part, we discussed about cool SMS-based applications.

Now in this third part, we will look at several simple and fun games that utilizes SMS as the controls, and also the possibilities of using SMS to control any games – or even anything.

The Games

We begin with the list of free games which are built with the sudden motion sensor in mind. But the exploration of the SMS feature in the gaming world has not gone too far so most of the games are too simple.

1. Tunnel

The first SMS-based game that I found is this Tunnel. Very simple, period. Even the color is only in black and white. But the first time playing it in front of my Windows-fanatic friends ““ and looking at their dropped jaw made me realize that there is more behind the simplicity and also how cool my Macbook is.

Anyway, the game is a nice time filler and don’t let the simplicity fool you. It’s not THAT easy.

2. WallyBally

The goal of this game is to get more points by making the ball touch the side of the wall colored green. During the game the walls will continuosly change color between red and green. If your ball touches the red, you’ll lose one life.

Kids will love this game, but I personally think that it is too easy. You can cheat by placing the ball near one side of the wall and wait for it to turn green instead of bouncing back and forth from left to right.

3. Tilt-Scream Pong

I assume you are familiar with Pong. This classic game has been brought to the Mac. With a “loud” twist, tilt your Macbook to control the paddle and bounce the ball, scream to enlarge it. Yes, you have to literally scream.

4. Tilt Mania

Colorful bars – with a random hole in the middle – are continuously going up, and the black ball must go down. Your job is to guide the ball down. If the ball is caught in the ceiling, you lose one life. The colors and simplicity will suit children, but that doesn’t mean that adults can’t get addicted to it.

You can also try some shareware like BubbleGym and Balance, which are better developed than their free counterparts.

The Modification

But the limited number of SMS-based games should not discourage you, because – theoretically – there are ways to play any ordinary games using SMS. Why did I say “theoretically”? Read on for the explanation.

To use SMS as the control for your games, you could try AMS2HID which is mentioned in the previous part. This application will be the “converter” to translate the motion of your Macbook into a mouse or keyboard input.

Then you need games. One recommended game to be used with AMS2HID is Neverball – something like Monkeyball for the iPhone. But you can try other games with mouse-controlled (or keyboard-controlled) movements like Pac the Man or something like flight simulator.

1. Open the game and then AMS2HID.
2. From the “Select An Application” options, choose the game.



3. From the “Select HID” options, choose either Mouse or Keyboard.



4. I suggest you choose “Test Mode” instead of “Normal Mode”. This application is old and has not been updated for newer generations of Apple laptops, so there’s a possibility that your Mac will become unresponsive. In the test mode, the AMS2HID will be automatically restarted every 60 seconds. Should anything happen, you can just quit the app.
5. There are also some adjustments to control the sensitivity of the SMS input. Read more about it on the developer’s site.
6. If everything is set, run the game and feel amazed. (If the system does not halt, that is ).

My experiment showed that AMS2HID worked fine with Neverball but not so fine with Pac the Man – worked for a while and then the system halted. I haven’t tried it with other games but theoretically it could work. It would also be very nice if the developer could update AMS2HID to give a boost to the now-stagnant SMS world.

I also tried to use Skip Checker – also mentioned in the previous part, with some modification to the scripts. Since I don’t have the capabilities of a “scripter”, I’ve searched the web for ready-made Apple Script to be modified. And with a little help from a keyboard layout editor application called Ukelele – deliberately misspelled for the sake of “artistic licence”, here are my results:

1. After opening Skip Checker, put the Macbook in a steady and level surface like table or floor.
2. Click “Recalibrate Motion Sensor”.



3. A pop-up window with explanations will appear, click “Calibrate”.



4. Go to the “Advanced” tab.



5. Change these scripts:

• say “down” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 126
• say “up” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 125
• say “right” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 124
• say “left” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 123
• say “forth” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 126
• say “back” –> tell application “System Events” to key code 125

Then you can give check to “Active” and save the file (File –> Save or Command-S) so that the settings can be re-used easily in the future.

Basically, what you do here is transform the “down-up” and “forth-back” motion into a “down and up” keypress on the keyboard (keycode 126 and 125); and “right-left” motion into “right and left” keypress on the keyboard (keycode 124 and 123). Just be sure to adjust the sensitivity sliders to your preferences.

I haven’t been able to find scripts for mouse movements, so I can’t help you with the mouse-controlled games.

A little warning, though; compared with AMS2HID, Skip Checker is less buggy. But Skip Checker commands will influence EVERY open application. Be sure to close Skip Checker if you are using other apps.

So, there you have it. Not perfect, but better than nothing. If you’ve tried the methods, share your experiences using the comments below.

MacSaber

Geek will be geek. This is the proof. One of the first (and most popular) hacks of SMS is turning the Mac into some kind of Jedi’s light saber. If you swing your Mac around, it will produce the sound of the saber.

There’s nothing productive about this app, but it’s fun to use in front of others ““ especially Windows users. It will raise your geekiness degree several levels up.

Liquid Mac

Imagine your Macbook as an empty aquarium, then fill it with colorful liquids, tilt the laptop to different side and angle and watch the liquid move accordingly.

That, my friend, is the simple explanation of what this app will do. It’s pretty useless and serves nothing more than a means to show off ““ and maybe to check whether the SMS feature of your Macbook is working. But you have to admit it’s very cool.

Skip Checker

I could say that this app is some kind of customizable control of anything utilizing the SMS feature. Be sure to do the calibration before using it.

It comes with a built in function of “smack your Mac to skip iTunes song”, but advanced users can utilize this small app for almost unlimited functions. Go to the Advanced tab and adjust the “threshold” sliders to your sensitivity preference, then write any script you want this app to do when the threshold limit is reached. Click the Active check box to activate it. One possible useful idea is to set the script to do up-down-left-right (and maybe page up and page down button) according to the set condition.

The cool thing about this app is that the user can save one set combination of script actions and then create another. The not-so-cool thing is that scripting is not for everyday users. It would be more convenient if the developer would provide drop-down option boxes instead.

SeisMac

Have you ever thought of turning your Macbook into a seismograph? Well, with SeisMac you can. I personally could not find any useful use for this app, but maybe people who live in an area with lots of earthquakes can.

The developer suggests it for classroom use and I couldn’t agree more. It’s fun to see which student can stomp the floor hardest. ☺

Carpenter’s Level

Human eyes can be deceiving. Sometimes what we see and what is the actual condition can be two very different things. That’s why a simple task like placing a picture on the wall could be very difficult. You need a carpenter’s level to do that, or ““ with a little help from this dashboard widget – your MacBook is also fit for the task.

Smackbook Pro & Slapbook for Virtue Desktop

Smackbook – another early adopter of SMS – is an example of the clever use of the feature to switch between different virtual desktops by “gently” smacking the side of the monitor. It uses Virtue Desktop (no longer in active development) as the virtual desktop.

Later on, Smackbook was picked up by another developer and turned into Slapbook. However, the development has been stagnant for a few years (the latest release is dated back to May 25th 2006).
It would be nice to see the version that works with Spaces.

Note: To download Slapbook, you need to register yourself first in the forum.

Other SMS applications

My research on SMS points to Amit Singh as one of the first developers who explored the possibilities of the feature. He wrote a lengthy explanation of using Sudden Motion Sensor as a human interface device. There are five applications related to SMS in his website:

SMSRotateD

the Sudden Motion Sensor as a screen rotation trigger for automatic screen orientation based on a notebook’s physical orientation (portrait or landscape). This application is limited for several use only and not working well on my Macbook.

AMS2HID

the Sudden MotionSensor as a human interface device. You can read the usage explanation from the webpage. It’s too long to describe here.

AMSTracker

retrieving data from the Sudden Motion Sensor.

AMSVisualizer

a 3D visualization of the Sudden Motion Sensor.

StableWindow

a window that counters motion.

Following the old saying “save the best for last”, the discussion about games using SMS will be saved for the next article. Meanwhile, if you know other (non-game) applications for Mac utilizing the SMS feature, please share using the comments below.

Somewhere in the path of iPhone software development, Apple opened its door and invited programmers to create applications for the iPhone. People began to create applications (mostly games) using the accelerometer feature. Users then could control the movements of the game character just by slightly tilting the position of the phone.

There are other Mac products with similar features, but overshadowed by their little siblings’ popularity, the feature is less known by the general public.

Brief history of Accelerometer

Accelerometer technology was first introduced by Apple to its laptop products (iBooks and Powerbooks) around March 2005 – way before iPhone’s first “public appearance” in January 2007. However, the Accelerometer feature on Apple laptops goes under a different name: Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS).

This feature is built to protect the hard drive and all the data inside by automatically locking the hard disk if it detects sudden physical position change ““ something like “heavily bumped”, “dropped”, “˜thrown”, and such. You get the idea.

Now, every Mac laptop (Macbook, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro) are equipped with the SMS feature. Yet, there are only a few applications developed to utilize this feature. Most are just for fun, some are even completely useless, but there are also SMS-based applications that are actually useful.

Installing The Anti-Theft Alarm

One of the most common problems for mobile gadgets ““ especially the mouth watering ones like Macbooks – is theft. The mobility makes them an easy target to be stolen. It’s true that the only way you can make sure your gadgets will never be stolen is by never buying them, but as the wise man says, “A little protection is better than no protection at all.”

Speaking of Mac laptops, I found several similar SMS-based applications to help you prevent thievery, such as: JackSMS, iAlertU, Lockdown, and MultiAlarm (abandoned but still useful).

JackSMS was mentioned slightly in the previous Mac article about Proximity, so why don’t we look at it more deeply now.

The first time JackSMS is opened; it will automatically display the Preferences screen. Here users can set several things according to their preferences.

Some of the settings are:

• Whether to launch the app automatically at every login
• Whether to set the sound every time the application is on or off.
• If user uses Apple Remote control, choose which button of the Apple Remote Control to use to activate/deactivate the app.
• Adjust the sensitivity of SMS and the duration of the alarm.

There are some special settings to choose to be implemented when the alarm goes off:

1. Send mobile text. Only applicable for US mobile numbers.

2. Email picture captured by iSight, to help you identify the thief.

Anytime you need to reconfigure, the Preferences is accessible through the menubar icon.

JackSMS also comes with sample AppleScript and PhoneEvents script for Salling Clicker and BluePhoneElite.

This application will be perfect as an automatic anti-theft alarm when paired with the Proximity sensor.

In the next part of “Utilize Your Mac SMS”, we will take a look at some games and fun SMS-based applications.