by After months of waiting and mere speculation, a leaked image of what could be Logitech’s long-awaited gamepad for the iPhone surfaced today on the @evleaks Twitter account. As TechCrunch reports, @evleaks has a good record when it comes to presenting leaks from companies like Samsung and Nokia, so there’s a good chance that what we’re seeing is legit.
The device looks like a much more polished version of a gamepad that leaked earlier in the year, and it’s similar to the gamepad designs that we briefly saw on the screen during WWDC back in June.
Previous concept drawings show that the thumbsticks were once part of the design, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Instead, the design merely has four buttons on the right side of the device (with button assignment similar to Microsoft’s beloved Xbox controller), a D-pad on the left, and two bumper buttons atop the device. Even so, it’s possible that Logitech could make two different versions, with one including the missing thumbsticks.
The key feature that sets a device like this apart from iPhone gamepads that have come before is the direct physical integration it allows through the iPhone’s Lightning port. That means the device should be more responsive than its existing Bluetooth counterparts and allow for better button mapping.
And if it works as well as intended? Popular standalone portable gaming systems like the Nintendo 3DS might be in some serious trouble, as peripherals like this would push the iPhone even closer toward being a true “all in one” system. Now all that remains is for Logitech to offer the unit at a competitive price.
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