During the opening keynote of WWDC 2022, Apple placed particular emphasis on the topic of gaming, introducing several innovations intended for developers. As usual there was a lot not said by the Cupertino house, such as the fact that iOS and iPadOS 16 now support more controllers.
The news was found in the past few hours and reported on Twitter by Rilesthe developer behind the famous AltStore and the Delta emulator, who confirmed that iOS 16 now offers full support for the Joy-Con of Nintendo Switch and also the Pro Controller of the Nintendo hybrid console.
From Riles’ tweets we learn that Apple has introduced a perfect implementation of the Joy-Con, to the point that it is also possible to use them individually – then the internal backbones are recognized – for a multiplayer game on the fly. Not only that, it is also possible to switch between single and double Joy-Con mode (so with both controllers mimicking a full pad) simply holding down the home and screenshot keys for a few seconds. iOS 16 recognizes the shortcut and switch between modes without having to re-pair the pads.
Compatibility, as anticipated, also includes the Pro Controller, although there isn’t much to add here as it is a rather conventional peripheral. About traditional padsit should be noted that compatibility with other third-party controllers has also been introduced, such as 8Bitdo, BADA MOGA XP5-X Plus and the Logitech F710 Gamepad.
The first indications of Apple’s support for Nintendo pads were already spotted on macOS Monterey, but it is only with new operating systems that it has been officially implemented. Obviously iOS and iPadOS 16 support Nintendo controllers in the same way and we expect the same to apply to macOS Ventura too, although there have been no reports on this.
