Here’s a noodle-scratcher for you: you have an iOS device and love playing games on it, but you’ve grown weary of effetely pawing at a touchscreen. What do you do? Well, now that iOS 7 is out on and has already been installed on a veritable crap-ton of devices, the answer is to explore the wild and woolly world of iDevice game controllers like the one Logitech just officially unveiled this morning.
It’s called the PowerShell and the general thrust of the thing will look pretty familiar if you’re an avid @evleaks follower (much like our own Matthew Panzarino). A leaked image of the device first made the rounds back in early October, and very little seems to have changed between now and then. The same textured d-pad sits to the left of the screen, the same A, B, X, and Y buttons rest to the right, and a pair of shoulder buttons round out the package. Thankfully, said package doesn’t appear to add too much heft to the iDevice ensconced within and Logitech has tucked a 1,500 mAh hour battery in there to keep the action going. Just be warned — it’ll only latch onto a iPhone 5s, iPhone 5, or 5th gen iPod touch, so 5c owners should apparently look elsewhere.
Now in fairness, the folks at Moga (who themselves are no stranger to smartphone gaming gadgets) pulled back the curtain on its first iOS 7-compatible controller doodad just the other day. It’s a far more complex affair, replete with dual joysticks and a layout that’s more than a little reminiscent of Microsoft’s venerable Xbox 360 controller. Oh, and Moga’s take even sports a slightly more robust internal battery to go with its identical price tag — on paper it looks like Logitech’s already running in second place. Still, even though it was the first to publicly tout its iOS-friendly controller, Moga hasn’t mentioned a specific release date for the thing, and Logitech is gunning to lock up the first mover advantage by peddling its own version today.
Then again, one could argue that being first is overrated. It’s being the first to really nail a formula that really matters and Logitech has remained relevant all these years because they usually manage to do just that. That’s not to say this competition is already over though — the floodgates are only now beginning to open and I’d wager gewgaws like this are going to be everywhere within a few months. May the best controller win!
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