Modder's iPhone app controls GTA 5's in-game phone

GTA 5 mod

Not all mods spring from a collective need or community requests. Sometimes they're just the result of a modder having an idea and wondering "Hey, can I do that?"

Reddit user planetleak posted a video of an iPhone app he's been working on. It allows him to control the virtual phone of his Grand Theft Auto 5 character using his real phone. His app recreates the GTA 5 phone interface (using xcode), and he added buttons and gesture controls. By pressing buttons on his app, it sends a URL to his Arduino webserver, which then runs a keybinding macro. Thus he can access the in-game phone's features, scroll through its inbox, make calls to contacts, and even take in-game photos. Have a look at some video of the app in action.

Obviously, pulling out your personal phone and using it to control Trevor's phone is hardly practical. It's easier to simply use your keyboard or controller. Still, it's really neat watching the modder call Trevor a cab. (Which Trevor, being Trevor, then destroys.) There's no word yet whether planetleak will share the app or source code with others, though I'd probably buy it just for novelty's sake.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Latest in Grand Theft Auto
GTA 5 characters
GTA 5 publisher takes legal aim at account-selling site for allegedly raking in 'millions in revenue', while recruiting hackers to keep its cogs turning
GTA 5 Enhanced
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced is a bitter-sweet return to Rockstar's money-making machine
Grand Theft Auto 5
How to transfer your GTA 5 save file to GTA 5 Enhanced and accept Rockstar's Online Policies if needed
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced screen - Trevor setting fire to somebody's big dumb truck
Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced launch is going poorly or well depending on how you look at it: It's got a 'mixed' rating on Steam and is one of the most-played games
GTA 5 Enhanced Edition
What's the difference between Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced and Legacy?
GTA 5 money
The Grand Theft Auto series has now sold over 440 million copies, and say g'day to Rockstar Australia
Latest in News
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam
Possibility Space concept art.
Possibility Space owners sue NetEase for $900 million over allegations it spread 'false and defamatory rumors' of fraud at the studio that ultimately forced it to close
Valve soldier man on a pc.
2024 was Steam's 'best year ever' of users buying newly released games—but I wouldn't celebrate the end of the forever game era just yet
Money money money.
Valve tracked 1.7 million Steam users who joined in 2023 to see if they stuck around—they did, and they spent $93 million
Closeup of the new Copilot key coming to Windows 11 PC keyboards
Microsoft co-authored paper suggests the regular use of gen-AI can leave users with a 'diminished skill for independent problem-solving' and at least one AI model seems to agree