Using a mix of the Arduino Leonardo PCB and an Ethernet shield connected to a PC, and running a webserver in connection with the Arduino Leonardo, one enterprising user was able to get the in-game phone in GTA V to connect with his real life iPhone.
The video below comes courtesy of DIY projects Planetleak, and shows off how an iPhone can be used with GTA V on PC.
It's mentioned in the YouTube description video that due to the Ethernet shield, the communication is kind of slow and that things could be sped up switching to BLE from the Ethernet setup. The real drawback is that this particular enthusiast lacks the programming skills to really make this feature pop.
Even still, it's a nice little side project to be able to mess around with taking a real phone and being able to mess with the meta options available within the in-game GTA V mobile phone.
One of the surprising things about the video is that a lot of people tend to think that it's all fake.
That's right. The video comment section is littered with two types of comments: one group saying it's fake and the other asking for an Android version.
The DIY Planetleak channel operator continually explains that this isn't just an app that you can download and use in GTA V. In fact, the procedure for getting this function to work is more reliant on the Arduino board than anything else. The Arduino Leonardo has to be hooked up to a PC to emulate a PC keyboard and work in connection with the in-game mobile phone in GTA V. In other words, it's no easy feat to replicate what you see in the video above.
However, some tech savvy individuals discussed ways of possibly being able to replicate the feature by cutting down on the lag and finding a way to remove the need for an Arduino board. How soon could that happen? It's tough to say.
Nevertheless, there are still plenty of people who think that the whole thing is staged. Technically, all the phone is doing is emulating the keyboard commands that operate the phone app in game and replacing the keyboard commands with button taps.
The only other app for GTA V was the iFruit app from a while back when the game first launched back in 2013.
Gamers have been constantly trying to find new ways to mod and mess with the inner workings of GTA V, and it's obvious that the game has a lot of different possibilities still yet unexplored when it comes to both in-game mods and real life technology.
GTA V is available right now for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and PC. The game recently launched on PC this past April and has been available since 2014 for the eighth-gen consoles and 2013 for the seventh-gen consoles.
