Samsung files patent for innovative joystick phone
And it doesn't work in the way you might think
Had it with trying to play mobile games with cramped D-pads? Join the club. As we start to get more 3D games on our phones, the traditional control mechanisms are decidedly looking a bit creaky.
Yet you can hardly stick a console-style analogue controller on a mobile phone, particularly if gaming isn't its primary use. Nevertheless, manufacturers are keen to find a suitable compromise. Nokia, for instance, has already had a crack at the problem by filing a patent for a plug-in joystick, and now Samsung has joined the joystick party.
Its patent is called Joystick Apparatus for Mobile Terminal, and takes a different twist on the idea – literally. It involves using the bottom half of a clamshell phone as the joystick, twisting it left and right, and tilting it up and down.
It's certainly innovative, although we wonder what buttons you'd use to play, seeing as the keypad wouldn't be ideal in this situation. And what's the danger of knackering out your phone if you end up playing one too many joystick-waggling action games?
Still, we'll wait and see if the idea appears in a forthcoming Samsung handset. If it does, it's likely to come out in South Korea first, of course.
