Good App Get! Joypad
Joypad is an excellent app that enables you to turn your iPhone/iPod touch into a fantastic touch-based wireless controller for your Mac. You can play your favorite emulated games and customize the controls using an easy to use keystroke mapper. I even managed to get it to work with MacMAME and played some SHMUPS and it worked really well.
Haters gonna hate. Touch screen controllers have been hit and miss, but I assure you that Joypad’s well-thought out design completely dismisses any criticisms sans physical feedback that you might have about them.
You might think that you’ll have to constantly look down at the controller screen to see where your thumbs are.
Wrong.
The size and layout of the buttons are super smart.
The Directional Pad
The directional pad at first may appear to you to only register input if you are touching it, but its merely an animated image that serves as a reference point as the input is actually calculated based on the origin of the directional pad versus where your thumb is, so according to the developers, “you can touch way outside the d-pad image itself and it will still work as expected.”˚
And, it does. It works incredibly well.
The B & A Buttons
The buttons on the right side of the controller are (obviously) the second half of the intelligent design of Joypad. Instead of choosing to emulate a traditional circular controller button - the devs decided to opt for big vertical piano key buttons.
It works so well that throughout my playthroughs of Espa Ra.De and Gunbird 2 I never once hit the wrong button or had a problem manipulating the smooth directional pad.
While you won’t find many apps like it, Joypad is the gold standard of controller apps. The idea is fantastic, executed so well, and it’s the absolutely best wireless controller you could ever buy for $1.99.
It’s a blast to use.
Want a free copy to show to all of your friends, or at least the friends who will get exactly how awesome Joypad is?
Lou Zell (one half of the developers behind Joypad) was kind enough to give me some iTunes promo codes for five free copies of Joypad for you to hopefully enjoy as much as I have.
The first five readers to comment get a free copy of Joypad!
I’d like to note that I myself have not received Joypad for free and initially bought it before contacting Lou and writing this post.
˚ Quote extracted from a Reddit comment from one of the devs.