iPhone used as a Virtual Joystick to Play Wolfenstein 3D; Also Paired with External PS2 Keyboard

Sunday, 21 June 2009 19:42 Tolga

Alex Winston sent us an email to tell us about an iPhone app that they have developed which works as a virtual joystick dubbed "Wolfenstick" to control Wolfenstein 3D Classic running on an iPod Touch (or second iPhone) through the audio port.

In addition to the virtual joystick which is pretty cool (you can checkout the video after the break), they have also demonstrated how it was also possible to pair an external PS2 keyboard with an iPhone using the same technique.

The impressive thing about their achievement is that they have managed to do it without jailbreaking the iPhone.

Alex Winston Ltd is a small company located in Nashville, Tennessee which is into development of iPhone apps.

They have provided the following details about their project on their website:"Expanding on the development of the iData toolkit which facilitates serial communication from the iPhone through the audio jack using FSK we have developed the ability to communicate bi-directionally entirely in software WITHOUT jailbreaking your phone. The demonstration below illustrates how two programs could be integrated to communicate with one another in real time."

The virtual joystick is essentially an app running on an iPhone that can control iPhone game - Wolfenstein 3D Classic running on an iPod Touch (or second iPhone) through the audio port.
Though the idea of using an iPhone to play a game on an iPod Touch might not sound like a practical idea, it opens up some interesting possibilities.

One of them is to connect an external keyboard to an iPhone which has been on the wish list.

Using the same technique, they have also demonstrated an external PS2 keyboard paired with an iPhone.

The impressive thing about their achievement is that they have managed to do it without jailbreaking the iPhone.

As you might already know, Apple will be allowing accessory manufacturers to create applications to interface with their hardware accessories in iPhone OS 3.0.

We have already seen the gold rush from iPhone apps developers, I expect another gold rush, this time from iPhone accessory manufacturers thanks to the possibilities opened up by iPhone OS 3.0. We have some killer iPhone apps thanks to the gold rush and we'll continue to see many more, lets hope, we see some useful iPhone accessories thanks to this one.

So if you have a great idea for an iPhone accessory and the money (of course), folks at Alex Winston Ltd. might be a good place to start.