60beat Offers Dual Analog Joystic GamePad For iOS Devices

There have been a few attempts at releasing a physical game contrloller for Apple’s smartphone. ThinkGeek iCade has apparently been the most successful among them.

Despite several other promising projects, it appears that the main difficulty has been the absence of unfettered connection between iOS devices and said game controllers. As a result, game controllers have relied on the emulation of a Bluetooth keyboard in order to interface with the iPad and iPhone. Although it works fine for such digital controllers as the iCade, full analog game conntrollers has remained elusive.

Now a company called 60beat is offering its solution that includes dual analog sticks and a number of other directional controls and buttons. The GamePad from 60beat connects via the headphone jack on your iPad, iPod touch and iPhone to perform this task.

Of course, games have to be programmed to interface with the new device. Currently only two games support GamePad, but it is said that a "full collection" of games with support for the devise will be added in Ferbuary 2012. The 60beat GamePad costs $49.99 and supported games are sold separetely.