One of the great flaws of the iPad – and indeed, many tablets – is trying to play games on touchscreen devices. In some cases, it works pretty well, as anyone who's played Angry Birds will say. But it doesn't always work out, and that's why the iControlPad was developed.

The new version, the iControlPad 2, is currently under development, and making for a very impressive potential release.

The new iControlPad 2 is said to be open source, which means it will not only work with iPads, but possibly other smartphones and tablets. It's slated to offer a 55-key keyboard, a set of shoulder buttons, a pair of rather short analog sticks being called "analogue nubs" and a battery that will offer up fully 14 hours of game time on a single charge – especially important since it's a wireless device.

The iControlPad 2 is currently a Kickstarter project, so just when the device will finally be made available to us is unclear. But the project has 25 days to go, and is nearly to the one-third complete market at $44,579 out of $150,000 total needed.

It's a safe bet that this one will indeed be hitting shelves at some point in the not too distant future.


Image via Shutterstock

There has been, for some time now, a pretty brisk market for aftermarket peripherals, especially for devices like these. While the iPad and its ilk have done a pretty solid job as a display and processor in one, control has often been an issue in many functions. Keyboards that work with devices like these are popular, but the iControlPad 2 looks to go just a little bit farther than that and offer up a fully-realized solution for not only tablet gamers, but for potentially many other kinds of gamers as well.

Console gamers, for example, sometimes have trouble making the jump to PC gaming as the controls are unfamiliar. Something like the iControlPad 2 may well make an effective bridge and boost the total numbers of gamers on every side of the aisle.

That and this also pretty effectively displays the sheer amount of amazing hardware – and software – that's currently available for backing on Kickstarter right now. It's quite a surprise to see what small companies are up to, not to mention how many are finding investors in a very small capacity.

The future of Kickstarter, and its accompanying gadgetry, remains to be seen, but if the iControlPad 2 is any indication, it should be a bright one indeed.

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