Despite positive feedback from early customers, setup was too confusing for a mainstream product, Joypad Co-founder Lou Zell tells me, and so the team released its first developer SDK in July as a way to eliminate all end-user setup. Since launching in March, the product evolved per customer feedback - with support for additional emulators, multiplayer, and Windows.

Joypad started as a way to control a Mac NES emulator from your iPhone. This kind of functionality gives developers a new way to create custom layouts for controllers and forge a deeper integration with the playing experience. For example, as a gamer reaches a new level, or unlocks new features, developers can push a new button out to the player in realtime. With these SDKs, gamers can interact with their favorite games in ways that were before impossible.

Game developers can also use Joypad’s free SDKs, which take about 30 minutes to integrate, to add Joypad support to their games. Joypad’s eponymous free app syncs directly with iPad, Mac, and PC games over bluetooth or WiFi to let gamers use their smartphone as a controller to play their favorite games on various NES-style control pads. are turning our iPhones into game controllers. Of course, technology is now taking us toward a confluence of consoles and touch devices. For mobile games, they’ve introduced some amazing interfaces and controllers that make those that have had the fortune of playing Atari on console take a step back and pinch themselves. Touch devices have revolutionized mobile gaming, just like they’ve revolutionized the mobile space as a whole.

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