MariOS is happening. Well, no, not really, but the beta version of iOS 16 for iPhone includes support for Pro Con and Joy Con.
The Nintendo Switch driver range has long avoided support for the iPhone, which already had support for Xbox and PlayStation controllers. Nintendo is also invited to the party now.
As discovered by app developer Riley Testut and as originally reported by The Verge, iPhones running the beta version of iOS 16 natively support Nintendo Switch drivers.
!!! iOS 16 natively supports Nintendo Switch Pro drivers !!
I can confirm that they work perfectly with Delta 😍 pic.twitter.com/p8u1sdjvTt
– Riles 🤷♂️ (@rileytestut) June 6, 2022
Testut confirmed that support works well with Delta, an SNES emulator, N64 and Game Boy for iOS.
Official support was later confirmed by Nat Brown, an Apple engineer. Brown added instructions on how to make Joy Cons work together on iOS 16.
Try it out. Lmk if you have any problems. With both paired, hold down the buttons on the bottom side (left “capture”, right “home”) for a few seconds to join the Joy Cons to a controller, and do it again to split them.
– Nat Brown (@natbro) June 6, 2022
YES, when you connect the two joy-cons appear as a single MFi driver in the applications!
Apple seriously killed it with this implementation, this is amazing 👏 pic.twitter.com/tUES8lh2zD
– Riles 🤷♂️ (@rileytestut) June 7, 2022
With Joy Cons support, there could be a great place for application development around the unique layout of the Nintendo Switch driver. If you don’t know, the Joy Con is a plug-in Nintendo Switch controller that can be split in two, so that two people can play, albeit with smaller controls. It’s a great party game feature.
It’s hard to say if this has any implications for Apple right now, a company that has long avoided taking games seriously other than its Apple Arcade game subscription service. While much of Apple’s WWDC conference focused on gaming and trying to introduce the Mac platform to developers, Apple strangely excluded support for Switch drivers on iOS from its announcements, which we would have liked to see . The iOS platform has a lot of games that can take advantage of driver support (immediately called Call of Duty: Mobile) and we may soon see apps that can use the split function of Joy Con drivers.
I’m excited to see what iOS app developers can do with the support of Pro Con and Joy Con. Phone games are just getting more and more impressive.