Apple appears set to make its first real move into gaming hardware. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports the company has spent over a year developing game controllers for iPhone, though when they launch, they may carry the Beats name rather than Apple’s.
The discovery came earlier this month, when a MacRumors reader spotted references buried in a macOS release candidate, code pointing to two unreleased devices equipped with gaming controller hardware, including dual thumbsticks, shoulder buttons and a D-pad.
Apple currently offers third-party controllers from companies like Backbone and SteelSeries through its online store. But according to Gurman, the two devices in question, codenamed T6502 and T1057, are being developed internally under the Beats brand, with Beats executives overseeing product engineering and design.
Gurman also suggested the Beats branding may be a deliberate choice, giving Apple room to test new product territory without putting its own name on the line.
Releasing the controller under Beats could also allow Apple to price it more affordably, since it wouldn’t need the premium materials and design typically expected of an Apple product. There may also be more natural overlap between Beats’ customer base and gaming culture in terms of style and identity.
Gurman did not, however, provide a timeline for when Apple’s in-house iPhone gaming controller might launch.
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