A physical control pad for Apple's iDevices would be a good idea, but it's not necessarily a new one. Craig Rothwell, inventor of the iControlPad is proud of his product and after a patent by Apple with the same concept was recently revealed, he immediately showed signs of being upset.
PatentlyApple recently revealed the patent which was filed almost six months after the iControlPad first made its debut. Craig Rothwell's development blog quickly posted a response titled 'An extremely sinister development' last Friday.
"We were very very surprised to see that apple have allegedly filed a patent for our original iControlPad design some 6 months after we revealed it," says Rothwell, "This was announced on April the 1st, and at first we thought it might be a joke aimed at us, but it's now been reported on several other sites, today, april the 2nd."
For now things have gone quiet as Rothwell attempts to contact Apple, but he's not the only one affected by the patent. Jason Chan from 22Moo has been working on another gamepad for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad called the GameBone.
22Moo were unsurprised at the news of Apple's patent and claim that they have been contacted directly by the company regarding the GameBone's progress. Jason Chan believes they'll have no problem obtaining approval from Apple for their product because it differs from the proposed design in key ways, "with the inclusion of a rear kick stand, shape of controller, method of iPad support and expandability and built-in battery for charging."
Chan is hoping that Apple will work with 22Moo in developing further variations of their controller, but also has no intention of competing for the homebrew crowd.
"We are big fans of the iControlPad actually -- this was the inspiration behind the start of the GameBone project," says Jason Chan.
The iControlPad has been a big hit with developers on jailbroken devices and is notably supported iPhone dev ZodTTD.
Appspy.com has contacted Craig Rothwell for further comment on this issue.
Youtube Preview of the iControlPad:
