Apple's WWDC developer sessions continue to trickle out more details about new features in its latest operating systems for mobile and desktop, including new gamepad support in iOS 14.
During its keynote on Monday, Apple said support for Xbox's Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and Adaptive Controller were coming in tvOS 14, and a WWDC session on Wednesday has confirmed that this support extends to iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.
The session covers support for the Dual Shock's touchpad and lightbar, the Xbox Elite's paddles, zone-based rumble haptics, and motion sensors. In addition, game developers will be able to take advantage of OS-level controller button remapping, as well as readymade button glyphs for use in game interfaces.
Let's rumble! Discover how you can bring third-party game controllers and custom haptics into your games on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. We'll show you how to add support for the latest controllers — including Xbox's Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and Adaptive Controller — and map your game's controls accordingly. Learn how you can use the Game Controller framework in tandem with Core Haptics to enable rumble feedback. And find out how you can take your gaming experience to the next level with custom button mapping, nonstandard inputs, and control over specialty features like motion sensors, lights, and battery level.
Another exciting highlight for game developers is keyboard and mouse support for gaming on iPadOS. Apple is letting developers finally add keyboard, mouse, and trackpad control options. While touch is obviously preferred for most iOS games, it opens the door for games like Civilization VI to add support for this in future updates.
And with future Macs powered by Apple Silicon able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively, we could see mobile games fully prepped for desktop peripheral use in macOS Big Sur.
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important.
Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped.
The new ...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year.
Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
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Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out.
Processor and Performance
Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device.
The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
Unfortunately, Apple missed the ball and I doubt we’ll see console-class games anytime soon on iOS. They had their opportunity to provide solid control solutions and welcome AAA games years ago, but I think that opportunity is gone and won’t come back for awhile.
Instead we got a race-to-the-bottom with crappy IAP games and cramped touch-based controls that you can’t play for more than 15 minutes without get carpal tunnel.
With the removal of Boot Camp and possibly 'almost good enough' virtualized Windows it makes streaming (for me, Xbox xCloud) the only remotely viable solution.
To me Apple will never recover from launching Apple Arcade (their 'flagship' gaming service) on high end hardware and then spending a long time featuring Frogger at the keynote.
This is great news to me. But it just reinforces my opinion that Apple's gaming efforts would have been soooooo much further along if they had done this much earlier. Better late than never.
Controller support is awesome, but it's really cumbersome to have to re-pair every time I want to switch between an Apple TV/iPad/iPhone and I'm not gonna buy 3 controllers just so each device can have their own.
I think it's a limitation of the controller always locking to one device, but it'd be nice to see Apple make their own with one of their AirPods chips that makes it easy to switch devices.
I would like to introduce you to 8BitDo ('https://www.8bitdo.com/#Products'). You turn the controller on with start and then press A, B, X, or Y to select a pair mode. Once you pair your devices with a button you just select the mode you want when you turn the controller on and boom, no having to go into setting and repair as you move from device to device.
This reads like it's part of a broader deal with Microsoft: Microsoft support for apple silicon (office, windows, etc) in exchange for Apple support for the new xbox controller to encourage xbox adoption and cross-platform game development for both systems.
The controller pairing issue is a controller issue (hardware-software) but a nextgen controller might do a better job of "remembering" 2-3 previously-paired systems so it's not such of a pain each time to go from xbox to ipad to mac to xbox.
