Mobility Digest Review: Think Geek Joystick-It Arcade Stick for iPhone
I’ve been reviewing products for many years now and I’ve learned in that time that most products don’t meet the hype surrounding them. They seem so great, awesome, cool, whatever other adjective you could come up with, in the ads, but once you get them they’re just not all that. Take the product I have for review today from Think Geek called the Joystick-It that is a mini joystick for your iPhone, iPod or Android devices, pretty much anything that has a capacitive screen will work. In my time with it I found it’s just not all that, frankly it doesn’t work most of the time…
Author: Kristofer Brozio
Vendor: Think Geek
Price: $17.99
Overall Rating: 3/5
Specs/Features:
Think Geek Joystick-It Arcade Stick for iPhone
Give your stubby digits a bionic upgrade
Bring your iPhone gaming to the next level with the JOYSTICK-IT iPhone Arcade Stick. The JOYSTICK-IT gives you a real physical joystick for increased precision with touchscreen based games. Simply press down to attach the JOYSTICK-IT to your iPhone’s screen for improved gaming. No wires or batteries needed.
The JOYSTICK-IT works with thousands of different game apps. Any game that has an on-screen control pad of some kind is perfect for the JOYSTICK-IT. Simply run your game of choice, place the JOYSTICK-IT over the on-screen control pad and push down. The JOYSTICK-IT sticks to the glass of your display and is ready for action. The lightweight solid milled-aluminum construction of the JOYSTICK-IT adds more precise movement and faster response time for enhanced playability. When you’re done, simply pull-up on the JOYSTICK-IT to remove from the screen.
Hardware Compatibility
The JOYSTICK-IT works with any device which features a capacitive touchscreen. This includes the iPhone and many Android phones. Want a JOYSTICK-IT for your iPad or Android tablet? We have that, too.
Game Compatibility
The JOYSTICK-IT will work with any game that features a virtual on-screen control pad of some kind. Games that use swiping, swipe-style joypads, joypads with variable on-screen locations, or complex finger based gestures will not work properly with the JOYSTICK-IT.
Product Features:
-Add a real physical joystick to your iPhone for enhanced gaming precision
-Works with thousands of different games
-No wires or batteries required
-Removable and reposition-able. Will not harm your screen.
-Solid milled-aluminum construction
-Laser etched crosshair design on top of stick adds thumb traction
-Invented and designed by ThinkGeek
-Patent Pending design
What’s in the Box?
The Joystick-It comes in a really big box for such a small product.
Inside you’ll find the product and a user guide.
One thing I can say about the Joystick-It is that it’s nicely made of solid aluminum.
On the top is a little target for decoration.
On the bottom you’ll find a small suction cup and a capacitive screen like part.
Here’s the Joystick-It on top of a quarter to give you an idea of size:
Impressions / Review:
To test it of course I played games, fun-fun right?!
I used the Joystick-It with my iPod Touch 4th gen, Samsung Captivate and my Le Pan tablet. To use it you just stick it right on your screen over the place where the joystick is on screen. Simple enough to do surely. I played Pac-man of course but I played others as well.
I found that it really doesn’t work that well on any of the devices I tried. Sadly it really doesn’t work, I was hoping it would as it’s a neat little gadget. I thought it would be easy to use, but I found to get it to work I really hard to push hard and even then it didn’t quite work.
I ran into another small problem, after using it a few times it fell apart. Yep the suction cup just fell out of it and it stayed stuck on the screen. Sure it was an easy fix, just a bit of super glue and it was fine, but I don’t think that should have happened only after a few uses.
Conclusion:
Well the Joytick-It is just one of those products that doesn’t quite live up to the hype around it. Three different devices and three failures basically. It’s a shame as I like the idea behind it, but I just couldn’t get it to work correctly. Sure it worked sometimes, but on the majority of the games I tried it just wouldn’t work.
It is made well though and it looks nice.
Pros:
+Nicely made
Cons:
-Fell apart after a few uses…
-Doesn’t quite work
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About The Author
Kristofer
I own Technogog.com, DragonSteelMods.com, ReviewTheTech.com and KristoferBrozio.com and I also write here on occasion of course.
Until you use this you think it will work on a lot of games but almost all touch optimized games use an input method other than a fixed joystick area and that’s required for this to work. So in the end it really isn’t a practical product.
“Pros:
+Nicely made
Cons:
-Fell apart after a few uses… ”
Huh?!?!
I meant the Joystick itself is nicely made… not the overall construction
Is there a similar product for Droid? My son’s best friend went to a video game development college, and I thought it would make a cool Christmas gift.
I completely agree, it’s a nice idea but it just does not work right. Even perfectly centered it doesn’t always register in the game unless you push hard which then pops the suction cup off. I tried all sorts of ways to do this short of gluing it to my screen with no luck getting it to work consistently in a game.