Apple Patents iPhone Gaming Add-ons With DS-Like Control

These patents found by Patently Apple shows that Apple is, at the very least, thinking about getting serious about gaming. They know their iPhone and iPad aren’t good for all games, with no buttons. So they added some.

These add-ons show a bunch of different ways to enhance gaming. There are buttons, a D-pad, thumb pads, extra keys (even a keyboard keypad), speaker, another camera and even one that has an extra screen (for a total of two screens). The point is that you dock your iPhone/iPod touch into these devices to turn it into something really similar to a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP – at least control-wise.

This is a smart move, and something that we’ve been asking for for years now (yes, we’re calling ourselves smart). The point is, for Apple to put out an accessory will make it much more likely to be used by iPhone game developers, rather than some no-name people like GameBone. Although GameBone’s is nice, because it has a built-in battery pack. [Patently Apple via Into Mobile via Kotaku]