More gaming controllers will be supported in iOS 16… Apple wants gamers!?
Apple’s claims about being more serious about the gaming experience in its ecosystem are proven to be true day after day. During the WWDC 2022 keynote, the company showed us many features and improvements coming to iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and the new macOS Ventura, but with the public beta versions still weeks away, we have plenty of time just to imagine how things would be.
However, the developer beta release of iOS 16 seems to have some good news for Nintendo Switch fans, as you will soon be able to use the Joy-Con and Pro controllers on your iPhone and iPad. The upcoming update will also support various models of gaming controllers, and the list includes the BADA MOGA XP5-X Plus, 8Bitdo, and Logitech F710 Gamepad.
The Joy-Con and Pro controllers’ support was first noted by Riley Testut, the iOS developer who previously worked on the AltStore platform and GBA4iOS emulator. Then, the news was confirmed officially by Nat Brown, an engineering manager at Apple. Brown said that Joy-Cons could be used either as a single controller or separately as two, and that is done just by long-pressing both the screenshot and home buttons. 9to5Mac, on the other hand, has spotted the internal code of the iOS 16 update and discovered more support for other third-party controllers.
This wasn’t the first time Apple brought support for gaming controllers to iPhone and iPad. The iOS 14.5 update (released back in February 2021) featured the support for the PS5 DualSense and Xbox Series X controllers, and the Nintendo Switch’s controllers are also officially supported with native drivers on macOS 12.
