The gamers should be excited as the latest incarnation of iOS will enable hardware game controllers, and also enabling console-like gaming experiences to be powered by its mobile devices. The implications are big: game developers will be able to target all controllers that conform to Apple’s standard, removing a lot of the friction that has so far stopped add-on hardware controllers from gaining popularity.
We first learned that Apple was adding hardware controller support during Monday’s WWDC keynote
presentation. A slide (pictured above) indicated that the iOS 7 SDK would support MFi game controllers, a reference to Apple’s licensing program for third-party hardware add-ons. Now, in iOS 7, Apple is providing some kind of consistent interface that all developers will be able to target. Write once, run everywhere. That is, as long as the hardware conforms to Apple’s standard.
