Get your mobile phone game on -- with pop-out joysticks

by Brian White, posted Feb 9th 2007 at 6:57PM

Talk about a concept whose time has come -- the pop-out joystick for mobile phones. From initial research, this design gets pressed in and turned to allow the 'enter' button in the middle of the d-pad to actually protrude from the handset for all those times when, you know, you need more tactile control of those J2ME or Mophun games -- hey, you might even feel like you're on a PS3 (not). Regardless, this is an extra-cool development for the mobile space. For anything more than phone menu navigation (ahem, mobile gaming), we for one hope this concept comes to light in future mobiles, because you haven't lived unless you've fragged some folks on that 2 inch screen.

Filed under: Handsets

Tags: cellphone keypad, cellphone navigation, CellphoneKeypad, CellphoneNavigation, Culture, d-pad, joystick, menu navigation, MenuNavigation, navigation pad, NavigationPad, scrollwheel, trackball, trackwheel

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

thrillho @ Feb 9th 2007 8:51PM

I can picture this coming out on flip phones, cracked screens-a-plenty when people don't retract the joystick.

Neutral

John Mars @ Feb 9th 2007 10:24PM

Why don't they do something like on the psp where the joystick is pretty much touching the surface. That way phones could still remain relatively thin without being governed by the length of the joystick

Neutral

bo @ Feb 9th 2007 11:52PM

This would be so great for using a small mobile phone as Bluetooth pointer! I just need it!

Neutral

Lebeu @ Feb 10th 2007 7:56PM

I think something like the classical red "joystick" from IBM Thinkpads with somekind of pressure sensitivity and small tactile feedback would be neat...atleast something worth trying/testing.

Neutral

jamma @ Feb 11th 2007 6:41PM

forget mobiles, this would be perfect for the next psp! especially if there was 2 of them.........

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