While I was surfing around the internet the other day, I came across a procedure that allows you to record the screen of your iOS device using QuickTime Player on your Mac. As someone who could really benefit from this feature for demonstrative purposes, my curiosity was definitely piqued. Add to that the fact that it is built into every Mac running Yosemite and that it’s completely free, and I knew that some of you, too, would really appreciate knowing how it works. Here’s a quick tutorial based upon Aaron Douglas’ Blog post on The Dangling Pointer.
Benefits of using Yosemite & iOS 8 to record your iPad screen
- QuickTime is already built into your Mac
- High quality recording since you are hard wired
- Capable of recording audio
How to record your iPad screen using QuickTime
- Make sure you have iOS 8 installed on your iPad and OS X 10.10 on your computer
- Open the QuickTime Player application on your Mac
- Select “Done” in the window that opens
- Now choose File–> New Movie Recording. Your computer camera (iSight, FaceTime) will open, so don’t be surprised when you’re looking at yourself
- Select the arrow to the right of the record button, and choose the camera (iOS 8 device) that you want to record from
- Once selected, you will now be able to view your iPad screen. If you turn your iPad to portrait mode it will also rotate on the screen
- Since you also have the ability to record sound, too, you can also select which microphone you would like to record that sound
- To begin recording, simply click on the red record button
- After your recording is complete you can either export the file (File–> Export–>choose video type/size) or share it using your Yosemite extensions
Limitations to using QuickTime to record screen sharing on your iPad
- Files can become vey large–so try and keep recordings short
- You won’t be able to see where your fingers touch the screen–however, apps that are selected go through the same animations that you visualize on your iPad, so actions like opening apps and settings are still visible
- I noticed a slight lag, but it wasn’t too bad. Aaron suggests making sure you’re watching the iPad screen when talking to ensure your audio explanations match what is being watched.
Good luck! Let us know in the comments section below if you are having any issues, or would like to add to the discussion on any way.
[UPDATE: 4/8/15, 5:37 PM EST]
Unfortunately, it looks as though support for this utility is restricted to devices with a lightning connector, as I was unable to bring up an iPad 3 in the camera choices. That means the oldest iPad that will work is the iPad 4. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused. Thanks for the heads-up, Ian!
© Renkman for iPad Insight, 2015. |
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