iOS touch event notifications (private API)

Question

It\'s possible to simulate touch events on iOS, and you can receive various system wide notifications when in the background using CTTelephonyCenterAddObserver and CFNotific

Answer 1

You can use the IOHID stuff in IOKit to get the x, y coordinates.

#include <IOHIDEventSystem.h>

create IOHIDEventSystemClient:

void *ioHIDEventSystem = IOHIDEventSystemClientCreate(kCFAllocatorDefault);

register callback:

IOHIDEventSystemClientScheduleWithRunLoop(ioHIDEventSystem, CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);
IOHIDEventSystemClientRegisterEventCallback(ioHIDEventSystem, handle_event, NULL, NULL);

unregister callback:

IOHIDEventSystemClientUnregisterEventCallback(ioHIDEventSystem, handle_event, NULL, NULL);
IOHIDEventSystemClientUnscheduleWithRunLoop(ioHIDEventSystem, CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);

callback:

void handle_event (void* target, void* refcon, IOHIDServiceRef service, IOHIDEventRef event) {
   if (IOHIDEventGetType(event)==kIOHIDEventTypeDigitizer){
       IOHIDFloat x=IOHIDEventGetFloatValue(event, (IOHIDEventField)kIOHIDEventFieldDigitizerX);
       IOHIDFloat y=IOHIDEventGetFloatValue(event, (IOHIDEventField)kIOHIDEventFieldDigitizerY);
       int width = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds].size.width;
       int height = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds].size.height;
       NSLog(@"click : %f, %f", x*width, y*height) ;
   }
}

Also, you can check this out: IOHIDEventSystemCreate on iOS6 failed. Hope this helps.

EDIT: Please see the result from the log. Tested on iPhone 4 and 5.

void handle_event (void* target, void* refcon, IOHIDServiceRef service, IOHIDEventRef event) {
    NSLog(@"handle_event : %d", IOHIDEventGetType(event));
if (IOHIDEventGetType(event)==kIOHIDEventTypeDigitizer){
    IOHIDFloat x=IOHIDEventGetFloatValue(event, (IOHIDEventField)kIOHIDEventFieldDigitizerX);
    IOHIDFloat y=IOHIDEventGetFloatValue(event, (IOHIDEventField)kIOHIDEventFieldDigitizerY);
    NSLog(@" x %f : y %f", x, y);
//2013-03-28 10:02:52.169 MyIOKit[143:907] handle_event : 11
//2013-03-28 10:02:52.182 MyIOKit[143:907]  x 0.766754 : y 0.555023
}
}