Horipad Ultimate is the second Lightning-rechargeable game controller for iOS & Apple TV
Horipad Ultimate, a new Apple-licensed gaming controller for both iOS and the fourth-generation Apple TV, is now available for purchase, sporting a built-in Lightning port for recharging its internal battery.
As of Friday, the Horipad Ultimate is only available for purchase direct from Apple priced at $49.95. New orders are advertised to ship in one to two business days.
The Horipad Ultimate has the distinction of being the second-ever controller to feature recharge capabilities via Apple's Lightning cable. The first was the SteelSeries Nimbus, which debuted last month alongside the new Apple TV.
Like the SteelSeries Nimbus, the Horipad Ultimate appears best suited for Apple TV and iPad games, as the controller lacks any sort of clamp to hold an iPhone for gaming on the go. Both offerings from Horipad and SteelSeries also hit the same $50 price point, which is half of what the first iOS-compatible gaming controllers cost when support launched with iOS 7.
The Horipad Ultimate is a fully-featured gaming controller featuring dual analog sticks, four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, and a D-Pad. It connects to an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac via Bluetooth.
The controller does not ship with a Lightning cable, but users can rely on the cable that ships with any new iPhone, iPad or fourth-generation Apple TV to recharge the device.
Manufacturer Hori advertises a battery life of about 80 hours for the Horipad Ultimate. Time to recharge the accessory is listed at 2.5 to 3.5 hours. The controller requires iOS 7, tvOS 9, or Mac OS X 10.9 or later.
As of Friday, the Horipad Ultimate is only available for purchase direct from Apple priced at $49.95. New orders are advertised to ship in one to two business days.
The Horipad Ultimate has the distinction of being the second-ever controller to feature recharge capabilities via Apple's Lightning cable. The first was the SteelSeries Nimbus, which debuted last month alongside the new Apple TV.
Like the SteelSeries Nimbus, the Horipad Ultimate appears best suited for Apple TV and iPad games, as the controller lacks any sort of clamp to hold an iPhone for gaming on the go. Both offerings from Horipad and SteelSeries also hit the same $50 price point, which is half of what the first iOS-compatible gaming controllers cost when support launched with iOS 7.
The Horipad Ultimate is a fully-featured gaming controller featuring dual analog sticks, four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, and a D-Pad. It connects to an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac via Bluetooth.
The controller does not ship with a Lightning cable, but users can rely on the cable that ships with any new iPhone, iPad or fourth-generation Apple TV to recharge the device.
Manufacturer Hori advertises a battery life of about 80 hours for the Horipad Ultimate. Time to recharge the accessory is listed at 2.5 to 3.5 hours. The controller requires iOS 7, tvOS 9, or Mac OS X 10.9 or later.
Comments
no gamer cares how the controllers look, just how they play.
That is untrue. This thing looks cheap and looks crap. Did you ever hear a serious gamer talk about controllers? Listen to John Siracusa discuss controllers at length in the second latest episode of ATP.
The quality of the buttons, the springiness of the analog triggers, the "dead zone" in the analog sticks, general shape and battery life are all more important.
The quality of the buttons, the springiness of the analog triggers, the "dead zone" in the analog sticks, general shape and battery life are all more important.
I agree. And none of that can be gleaned from a picture or how it "looks".
"I'll wait for the second generation." /s
Yeah, me too. No built in GPS? Requires a connection to Apple TV? Yeesh.
You can use the Apple TV remote to play games, but you will likely get easily frustrated. You almost have to have one of these game controllers to play a lot of the games.
Hori makes some good stuff. If I were to get a controller this would be the one I would get right now.
You can't tell the quality from the picture. It's s simple design esthetically, so what? What matters is how it works.
What I'm happy about is that it's modeled on the PS3 controller, as most of the others, such as the Mad Catz, which is modeled on the XBox controller. Since we're a Sony console house, we're not happy about that. So if it gets good reviews, we'll buy a couple. It's less expensive than the Microsoft and Sony controllers, which are $59, the same as the Mad Catz.
I don't care about what John says. Esthetics aren't a real issue here. Game play, battery life, and ruggedness are the issues.
Exactly!
You can use the Apple TV remote to play games, but you will likely get easily frustrated. You almost have to have one of these game controllers to play a lot of the games.
Depends on the game.
Rayman adventures is good with either Apple remote or game controller, as is Disney Infinity.
I'd like to hear which games you have in mind?
Clearly this was designed to resemble Sony Playstation controller while SteelSeries Nimbus looks more like Xbox (except for placement of left analog stick). At least this controller has a single piece d-pad and lettered buttons instead of the Sony's 4 separate directional buttons and the shape symbols.
The one who named the company Hori started it, and marketing genius was afraid to deviate from it.
If it looks cheap it's going to be assumed that the rest of it was cheaply made.
On the positive note, this is much better looking than the Nimbus. It actually looks like it might be more comfortable, too.
I don't know how it looks cheap. It's a basic controller. It follows Apple's controller guidelines. I've got the PS3 controller here, and it looks fine, and somewhat different, but more expensive? I don't know, from the look.
But this is for casual iOS gamers. They're accustomed to their hardware being of high quality and nicely designed.