I wonder why nobody’s come up with this gadget until now, and why a design like this – a console-like control environment addition to the iPhone – hasn’t been found on people’s wish lists more often.

No matter now, the iControlPad is near completion, and it will bring a Nintendo’s feel to all your App Store games. It’s built to contain your iPhone, which snaps inside like the second piece of a three-piece puzzle, in what looks like a painless, snappy, and frankly, quite a smart way of turning a phone into a portable gaming console.

The iControlPad will have a D-Pad, two analogue sticks and triggers on the back. It is big, by modern standards, but the gaming experience will be leaps and bounds above anything you could get from the iPhone’s own controls, and it does come with its own battery for extra gaming time.

In a last minute twist, there’s a forced switch being made towards a Bluetooth connection between the two interfaces, since Apple won’t allow just anyone to use the dock connector, the issue of a license is required. In the future, the iControlPad will work with various Android phones as well, only needing a change of the side brackets to make the switch.

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