Open Radar

 
I’m excited about iOS game controllers, but I have an iPad and a Mac and an iPhone and I would prefer to do my gaming on my iPad or Mac. However the controllers that have shown up so far seem form fitted for an iPhone/iPod so I’m still left out in the cold here - but even if there were other options, why not make use of the fact that I have both devices already?

What would be totally epic is if the iOS game controller framework allowed any iPhone or iPod to become a virtual controller to be paired to an iPad or Mac game automatically. So, for example, I launch a game on my iPad and then I flip open the control center on my iPhone and it notices there’s a game nearby and lets me join it. When I do, the screen of my iPhone transforms into a standard Apple-defined touch-screen-based controller configuration. I can then use my iPhone as a wireless controller for my iPad - all magically using the iOS game controller framework behind the scenes so the game itself doesn’t need to know.

Now here’s where the magic happens! Say I have one of those nice form fitting controller attachments for my phone but I want to play the game on my iPad or Mac’s bigger screen. I do the same procedure as above to connect to the iPad or Mac game from my phone, but because my iPhone has a physical controller attached to it, I don’t get the usual on-screen virtual controller but instead it just passes the physical controller’s inputs wirelessly to the iPad or Mac game. So suddenly I’m playing an iPad or Mac game using an iPhone controller all automatically and without the game needing special support for it or custom apps. Even better - I only have to buy a single physical controller and can play games with it both on my iPhone directly like normal -or- on my iPad or Mac!

Bonus points: Add some API to the game controller framework so that games can supply some relatively small and self-contained view of some sort that can be rendered on the screen of my iPhone when connected. This view could have stats or some soft buttons or.. something. Not necessary out of the gate, of course, but it could be awesome!

And while we’re on the subject of awesome, how about provide some magical way for my iPhone and/or iPad to upload an entire game to my AppleTV so it runs on the AppleTV natively (thus eliminating Airplay lag) and then uses this wireless controller magic to control it. Boom - you’ve just dealt epic damage to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft in one shot!