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Apple spent a year designing iPhone gamepads to compete with the ones it already sells
According to Bloomberg, Apple's iPhone game controllers will carry the Beats logo instead of Apple's, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Beats executives are overseeing the project.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Bloomberg's Mark Gurman corroborated references found in macOS beta code showing that Apple is designing its own game controllers for the iPhone.
- The code points to two separate devices, carrying the model identifiers T6502 and T1057, and their external design is not yet known.
- Evidence in the code covers a D-Pad, thumbsticks and haptic motors, plus a possible integrated accelerometer and gyroscope for motion controls.
- Apple's own online store already sells game controllers from Backbone, SteelSeries and Sony's PlayStation division.
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Why it matters
- exposure Backbone and SteelSeries sell through a storefront whose owner is building a competing gamepad, so their placement and their price comparison are set by a rival.
- constraint If Beats holds to cheaper materials at lower price points, the platform owner sets the floor of the iPhone gamepad market, and independent vendors end up defending margin.
- decision Accessory teams now have to decide whether the thing they charge for is a button layout Apple can duplicate, or something Apple will not build.
- precedent Beats already stretched from audio into cases and cables, so controllers make it the label Apple reaches for when it enters an accessory category it currently stocks with other brands.
The iPhone owner who wants physical buttons tonight uses somebody else's hardware. 9to5Mac notes that MFi-compatible gamepads pair with Apple devices, and so do the PlayStation DualShock and the Xbox Wireless Controller [8].
Bloomberg's report, as quoted by Digital Trends, said the company "has indeed been working on gaming controllers for the iPhone for a bit over a year, with the goal of competing with a slew of popular third-party options. Apple sees this as a growing market and wants in" [10]. Digital Trends said there is no word on when Apple plans to launch them [11]. Neither report puts a price on them or counts how many iPhone owners use a controller [15].
The brand choice carries the pricing. 9to5Mac wrote that Beats accessories often target lower price points with slightly cheaper materials than the more premium Apple brand implies [5], and that Gurman believes the project is overseen by Beats executives [4]. Beats in Apple's own store already reaches past audio into protective cases and cables, sold alongside earbuds, headphones and speakers [12].
9to5Mac expects a first-party pad to improve gaming on Apple TV 4K and to "boost engagement" with the increasingly sophisticated AAA games arriving on iOS and Mac [9]. Engagement is a forecast about attention. Whether the product works turns on what share of iPhone players ever buy a controller, and how many are still using it four weeks later. Apple Arcade already carries plenty of AAA games, and Apple pushes its Metal architecture as a route to play titles like Resident Evil and Death Stranding on Mac, iPhone and iPad [13].
For anyone selling an accessory through a platform owner's store, two questions decide the risk. One is whether the platform controls your distribution. The other is whether your value sits in hardware the platform can duplicate. Answer yes twice and you are proving demand the platform will go on to serve itself. I would price and plan on the assumption that a Beats-branded pad appears on the same shelf at a lower number, and take either the margin hit of moving upmarket or the volume hit of selling outside the Apple Store. The tradeoff is real, because that store is distribution a gamepad vendor cannot cheaply replace, and its owner is the company Bloomberg says wants in [10].
What to watch
- Whether the Apple Store keeps listing the Backbone One, the SteelSeries Nimbus+ and Sony's pads once Beats controllers appear.
- The first price attached to T6502 or T1057, which shows whether Apple is aiming under the accessories it currently sells.
- Whether the accelerometer and gyroscope hinted at in the code survive into shipping hardware.