Apple is the platform of standardization (within their walled garden) though. And as much as that shits on consumer choice, it does make for as consistent an experience as possible. That’s valuable for a lot of people but especially developers.
If I were Apple, and I wanted to position the iPhone to compete with something like Nintendo Switch, I would:
Form an exclusive partnership with Sony or Microsoft to officially support their controller.
Have my engineers work directly with that partner to make their cloud gaming and console streaming apps absolutely top notch. Talking “Apple native” feel and functionality.
Sell first-party kickstand cases or popsockets. MagSafe, preferably.
Sell official first-party controller brackets for holding the phone. Bonus, these are “magic” like the keyboard or the pro monitor mount.
Start a licensing deal with 8bitdo for an official co-branded controller.
Start a series of exclusive games featuring a brand mascot character (original or adopt a forgotten one, like Bonk or something idgaf)
Edit, one more very important thing: Allow retroarch in the App Store and allow for roms to be airdropped and for the app to run a restricted SMB server (drop into a specific directory and user approves connections)
Apple is the platform of standardization (within their walled garden) though. And as much as that shits on consumer choice, it does make for as consistent an experience as possible. That’s valuable for a lot of people but especially developers.
If I were Apple, and I wanted to position the iPhone to compete with something like Nintendo Switch, I would:
Form an exclusive partnership with Sony or Microsoft to officially support their controller.
Have my engineers work directly with that partner to make their cloud gaming and console streaming apps absolutely top notch. Talking “Apple native” feel and functionality.
Sell first-party kickstand cases or popsockets. MagSafe, preferably.
Sell official first-party controller brackets for holding the phone. Bonus, these are “magic” like the keyboard or the pro monitor mount.
Start a licensing deal with 8bitdo for an official co-branded controller.
Start a series of exclusive games featuring a brand mascot character (original or adopt a forgotten one, like Bonk or something idgaf)
Edit, one more very important thing: Allow retroarch in the App Store and allow for roms to be airdropped and for the app to run a restricted SMB server (drop into a specific directory and user approves connections)