iPhone emulators are allowed now so here are some great iOS controllers

It’s time, friends. | Photo by Alix Diaconis / The Verge

Yesterday afternoon, I was playing Mario vs. Donkey Kong on my Vision Pro (using the visionOS testflight version of app developer Riley Testut’s GBA4iOS) with an authoritative Nintendo NES controller for the Switch. All the while, I was reasoning astir what a shame it was that Apple doesn’t let emulators connected its App Store. I hadn’t yet seen the quality of Apple’s surprise decision to allow emulators connected its integer storefront worldwide.

While we inactive don’t cognize precisely however emulators volition enactment connected the iPhone, Apple’s play present would enactment its App Store successful a amended spot to vie with alternative app stores successful the EU. Assuming that means you tin really play games from the consoles they emulate, it could beryllium a immense woody for retro gaming fans. As large arsenic the Steam Deck and Switch are, the embiggening of portable crippled consoles has travel astatine the important outgo of portability (unless you person cargo pants and don’t caput them banging against your knees portion you walk).

I’ve ever felt the Game Boy Advance was highest handheld design, acknowledgment to its clamshell signifier factor, and the Nintendo DS Lite wasn’t bad, either. Andrew Webster said akin things portion waxing nostalgic astir the PlayStation Vita for The Verge this morning.

Of course, the iPhone has nary look buttons, and virtual buttons, portion good successful a pinch, are a mediocre substitute for thing that demands speedy reflexes. Thankfully, your options are plentiful connected the iPhone.

The perfect concern volition beryllium a controller that attaches straight to your phone, similar the Backbone One. It’s benignant of similar Switch Joy-Cons, successful that it clamps onto either extremity of an iPhone successful scenery orientation. But it connects via Lightning oregon USB-C, depending connected which mentation you buy, truthful you don’t person to futz with Bluetooth pairing. Just slap it connected and go. Of course, if you person an iPhone 14 oregon below, it’s harder to perpetrate $100 to it if you’re readying connected updating to a USB-C iPhone soon. There’s besides the iPhone’s ever-growing camera bump, which caused the institution to address with a 3D-printed adapter for the Lightning version, to consider.

But you mightiness not request to bargain Backbone’s controller astatine each if you already person a Switch. Nintendo’s controllers enactment with the iPhone also, and determination are adapters retired determination that fto you physically connect Joy-Cons to your phone. I haven’t tried them, truthful your mileage whitethorn vary, but they exist.

You tin besides use your existing Xbox oregon PlayStation controller. Maybe they’re not arsenic portable arsenic the different options I mentioned, but the Xbox Wireless Controller and the PlayStation DualSense controllers volition beryllium particularly clutch for GameCube games similar F-Zero GX and Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, which truly request analog triggers for the champion experience.

There’s besides 8bitdo’s Pro 2 controller with analog triggers. While I haven’t utilized that 1 specifically, Sam Byford surely liked it, penning for The Verge back successful 2021 that it was better than the modular Switch Pro controller — plus, it’s got that chill SNES aesthetic.

These are conscionable a fewer of the galore options that beryllium for iPhone controllers. There are plentifulness more, but contempt Apple’s phone’s presumption arsenic a mobile gaming powerhouse, third-party controllers haven’t made a large splash connected their own. With emulators allowed successful the App Store — a alteration possibly sparked by regulatory unit from the United States’ antitrust lawsuit against it, and regulatory unit successful the European Union — possibly we’re successful for a aboriginal wherever the iPhone is really an perfect handheld gaming platform.