Is Apple planning on building a joystick onto future iDevices?

It looks like an analog nub might be in the cards for Apple’s line of gadgets if a new patent is to be believed.

Now, take this with a grain of salt since Apple patents a lot of stuff (as most tech companies do) and a good deal of it never sees the light of day. Even so though, this one’s interesting for the implications that it could have for the tone of Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices down the line.

We know that the company has gotten relatively serious about games already, thanks to the native support for gamepads being built into their mobile OS, now though it looks like they could be getting even more direct. A recent patent, which was tagged by Forbes magazine, promises a way to pop the home button ‘up’ from the normally flat position it lives in now.

The button would then become a sort-of analog nub, able to control games specifically. Yes, that’s right, the patent directly mentions games as the main target of the proposed ‘feature’, which is pretty big time when you’re talking about Apple in specific. As we all know, the hardware maker hasn’t exactly been too into large-scale changes to its devices outside of the form-factor, and changing things up just to accommodate gamers? Well, that’s pretty awesome.

Of course, nothing may come of this at all, and it certainly seems as though a third-party, bluetooth-enabled controller would still be your best bet for mobile gaming with buttons. Still though, it’s cool to think what might be, and even cooler to think that Apple might make a serious hardware move with gaming in mind.

Source: MCV