Apple's WWDC developer sessions continue to trickle out more details about new features in its latest operating systems for mobile and desktop, including new gamepad support in iOS 14.
During its keynote on Monday, Apple said support for Xbox's Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and Adaptive Controller were coming in tvOS 14, and a WWDC session on Wednesday has confirmed that this support extends to iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.
The session covers support for the Dual Shock's touchpad and lightbar, the Xbox Elite's paddles, zone-based rumble haptics, and motion sensors. In addition, game developers will be able to take advantage of OS-level controller button remapping, as well as readymade button glyphs for use in game interfaces.
Let's rumble! Discover how you can bring third-party game controllers and custom haptics into your games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. We'll show you how to add support for the latest controllers — including Xbox's Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and Adaptive Controller — and map your game's controls accordingly. Learn how you can use the Game Controller framework in tandem with Core Haptics to enable rumble feedback. And find out how you can take your gaming experience to the next level with custom button mapping, nonstandard inputs, and control over specialty features like motion sensors, lights, and battery level.
Another exciting highlight for game developers is keyboard and mouse support for gaming on iPadOS. Apple is letting developers finally add keyboard, mouse, and trackpad control options. While touch is obviously preferred for most iOS games, it opens the door for games like Civilization VI to add support for this in future updates.
And with future Macs powered by Apple Silicon able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively, we could see mobile games fully prepped for desktop peripheral use in macOS Big Sur.
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
Tuesday April 22, 2025 10:22 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to release an all-new super thin iPhone this year, debuting it alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We've seen pictures of dummy models, cases, and renders with the design, but Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy today showed off newer dummy models that give us a better idea of just how thin the "iPhone 17 Air" will be.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be ...
Thursday April 24, 2025 2:14 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
If you missed the video showing dummy models of Apple's all-new super thin iPhone 17 Air that's expected later this year, Sonny Dickson this morning shared some further images of the device in close alignment with the other dummy models in the iPhone 17 lineup, indicating just how thin it is likely to be in comparison.
The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be around 5.5mm thick – with a thicker ...
Tuesday April 22, 2025 5:01 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
A developer has demonstrated Windows 11 ARM running on an M2 iPad Air using emulation, which has become much easier since the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulations came into effect.
As spotted by Windows Latest, NTDev shared an instance of the emulation on social media and posted a video on YouTube (embedded below) demonstrating it in action. The achievement relies on new EU regulatory...
Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
Apple seeded the third beta of iOS 18.5 to developers today, and so far the software update includes only a few minor changes.
The changes are in the Mail and Settings apps.
In the Mail app, you can now easily turn off contact photos directly within the app, by tapping on the circle with three dots in the top-right corner.
In the Settings app, AppleCare+ coverage information is more...
Wednesday April 23, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Unfortunately, Apple missed the ball and I doubt we’ll see console-class games anytime soon on iOS. They had their opportunity to provide solid control solutions and welcome AAA games years ago, but I think that opportunity is gone and won’t come back for awhile.
Instead we got a race-to-the-bottom with crappy IAP games and cramped touch-based controls that you can’t play for more than 15 minutes without get carpal tunnel.
With the removal of Boot Camp and possibly 'almost good enough' virtualized Windows it makes streaming (for me, Xbox xCloud) the only remotely viable solution.
To me Apple will never recover from launching Apple Arcade (their 'flagship' gaming service) on high end hardware and then spending a long time featuring Frogger at the keynote.
This is great news to me. But it just reinforces my opinion that Apple's gaming efforts would have been soooooo much further along if they had done this much earlier. Better late than never.
Controller support is awesome, but it's really cumbersome to have to re-pair every time I want to switch between an Apple TV/iPad/iPhone and I'm not gonna buy 3 controllers just so each device can have their own.
I think it's a limitation of the controller always locking to one device, but it'd be nice to see Apple make their own with one of their AirPods chips that makes it easy to switch devices.
I would like to introduce you to 8BitDo ('https://www.8bitdo.com/#Products'). You turn the controller on with start and then press A, B, X, or Y to select a pair mode. Once you pair your devices with a button you just select the mode you want when you turn the controller on and boom, no having to go into setting and repair as you move from device to device.
This reads like it's part of a broader deal with Microsoft: Microsoft support for apple silicon (office, windows, etc) in exchange for Apple support for the new xbox controller to encourage xbox adoption and cross-platform game development for both systems.
The controller pairing issue is a controller issue (hardware-software) but a nextgen controller might do a better job of "remembering" 2-3 previously-paired systems so it's not such of a pain each time to go from xbox to ipad to mac to xbox.
