Apple chooses Joy (Cons)

If you’re the particular kind of person who played Pokémon Crystal on your jailbroken iPhone 3 during your high school math class, then there’s even bigger news coming out of WWDC than the M2 MacBook. On iOS 16, Apple iPhones will support bluetooth pairing with Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons and Pro Controllers, giving you more control while playing mobile games.

According to Apple engineer Nat Brown, Joy-Cons can be paired as one controller using both the left and right sides, or a singular Joy-Con can be used as the controller. Some users have reported bugs when switching between combined and single controls, but some issues are to be expected in the brand new iOS 16 developer beta. Ideally, users are supposed to be able to split and recombine individual Joy-Cons by holding the iPhone’s screenshot and home buttons for a few seconds.

Former GBA4iOS creator Riley Testut, who spotted the Joy-Con compatibility, is now developing Delta, another iOS game emulator. While the emulator isn’t on the App Store, you don’t have to jailbreak your phone to download it, unlike the old days. But if you’re looking to play games like the original Super Smash Brothers on your iPhone, remember that it’s illegal to download copyrighted ROMs online. Personally, at the very least, connecting a Switch controller to my iPhone is going to revolutionize my iOS Tetris gameplay.