What is going on, everybody?
I am Mike, welcome back to Tech 24/7 TV.
I'm so glad that you're back with me today because we are
talking about one of my favorite accessories
for the iPhone.
And actually even now for the iPad.
This is the Backbone One game controller from Backbone.
It's a game controller that's MFI certified,
made for iPhone certified.
So it works with any iPhone from the iPhone 6S and newer
through the 12.
It plugs right into the bottom of your iPhone using the
lightning port that's on here.
And it is designed to level up your gameplay whether you're
playing an iOS game, PS remote play, maybe even
Xbox cloud gaming, or even stadia.
This is the game controller that you want.
So in today's video, I'm going to answer all of your burning
questions from the first video.
I'm show you some different things in terms of what you can
use it with.
And I'm I show you how to use it with your iPad.
Let's get started.
Before we get the video, YouTube tells me that 90
percent of you watching today's video are not subscribed
to the channel.
And I think that's a real shame because I love great accessory
videos just like this Backbone One game controller.
It's one of my favorite accessories.
It goes with me everywhere.
Now, if you want to catch more great accessories in
the future.
Plus, my full review of iOS and iPad 15.
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Now, when we get into the video, it's broken down
into different sections, and each of the sections will
pin down each section in the first comment below.
Additionally, anything I talk about, what we
link down the video description.
Now let's get into it to familiarize anyone who has not
seen the first video.
This is the backbone one game controller.
It's ninety-nine dollars.
And this will work with any iPhone from the iPhone 6S
on newer, including the complete line of
iPhone 12 devices.
It's going to connect to your iPhone using the lightning port
that's here on the side of the controller.
And this simply opens up and then snaps close using your
iPhone as the screen.
Now, there are a number of different buttons on here.
The shoulder buttons, the two joysticks,
you have the D-pad, and then also the action buttons.
There's a few additional buttons,
including the launcher app for the backbone,
taking screenshots in a menu button along the bottom.
On the left-hand side, you have a three-point five-millimeter
jack if you want to use wired headphones,
and then here, you have a lightning port connector in
case you want to charge your iPhone while playing a game.
If you are thinking to yourself, hey,
this backbone looks cool.
I wonder if it works with my game; well , you're not
alone because that is my number one asked question.
Will it work with this game or that game now?
I can't tell you which game it does work with.
I can tell you with games that I played, the games I've
tried for testing.
But there are so many games in the app store; it would be
impossible for me to tell you which games it works with.
Thankfully, Backbone has already gone to the trouble,
and they've identified every game that works with
the Backbone One.
There's a link I put down the description below as
well as here.
You can visit that link on your iPhone and see what games are
supported by simply searching for the title.
Now I'll leave you with a few guiding principles if the game
is listed there.
But you still want to check if the game works with a
controller such as a PlayStation controller or
an Xbox controller.
It's probably going to work with the Backbone One because
it's MFY certified.
Second, if you're wondering if it works with PUBG,
unfortunately, Pobjie does not support
controllers for movement.
So if you connect this while playing PUBG, it's not
going to work.
Third, if you want developers to support this, you need to
leave an app review on that game, telling the
developer that you want to support MFY controllers or the
Backbone One so they can incorporate that framework
into their game.
The only way that they will know about this is if you let
them know via actionable feedback on their game.
Now that we've identified what games are supported, let's talk
about what platforms are supported now.
Obviously, Apple Arcade is be supported because it is a
third-party controller designed for the iPhone.
You also have things like Xbox, remote play;
you have PS Remote Play, Moonlite AM dealing steam
link stadia, Invidia Force Link,
Xbox Game Pass, Shadow Railway,
and Amazon LUNA.
So there's a ton of different platforms that you can use this
on while playing games on your phone, which is great
because it opens up the entire catalog of games that either
you currently own or the ones that you're streaming.
I love to use this with my iPhone while I'm playing
PS remote play.
Games like Watchdogs Legion and HitMan on my PlayStation5.
Now, in case you're wondering about PS Remote Play, which is
one I can comment about the most since I'm familiar
with it,
PS Remote Play is an app.
It's installed on your phone, and you can stream your content
from your PlayStation to your phone anywhere that both
devices are on Wi-Fi.
So if I have my PlayStation5 at home, as long as I'm
on Wi-Fi, I can play games on my phone using
an Internet connection.
Obviously, there's latency involved,
but it's great because you can play those games again anywhere
you have Wi-Fi.
If your phone is on LTE or 5G, unfortunately, it will
not work.
One of the questions I get asked most often is to
customize the game controls on the Backbone One?
And the short answer is yes, you can.
To do so, you want to open up settings on your iPhone.
You're going to go around a general.
You can go to game controllers there.
You can see the Backbone One, and you can click
on custom controls.
From there, it shows you the default configuration.
You can scroll to the bottom, where it shows
app customizations, and then you can then customize it on
a per-app basis.
I'm the type of person who likes to use their iPhone
without a case, which is why it completely slipped past me: you
cannot use the Backbone One with a case on your iPhone.
That's because it creates tension on
the lightning port, and you would experience
it disconnection issues.
So you need to make sure that you are comfortable removing
your iPhone from the case before using it with
the Backbone One.
It is an inconvenience, but since it does
impact gameplay,
I think I'd rather have a better gaming experience than
worry about dropping my phone while it's in.
You know, I'm holding this both my hands.
I think it's kind of unrealistic that I drop it
inside of here.
What makes the backbone great, in my opinion, is that you can
transform your phone into being the physical screen that you're
interacting with just by adding the controller to it, and it
really is immersive in that regard.
Now, your phone connects to the backbone using the lightning
port controller here.
And there's no way for this to fit an iPad, let alone even the
smallest iPad, which is the iPad mini.
But what if you could connect this to your iPad using
a cable, which is completely possible?
You can use a breakout cable that is lightning female to
lightning mail to connect to your iPad.
Let me show you here we have my 2017 ten-point five-inch iPad
Pro still functionally usable.
I mean, take the female into the cable and plug it into
my Backbone One.
And then, I would take the male into the cable and plug it
into the bottom of the iPad pro.
Here I am, I'm playing all the games, I'm scrolling my
library that's actually installed on my phone.
OK, let's open up the piece remotely.
And right now, what it's doing is it's connecting to
my PlayStation, that's in the other room.
Sometimes the screen on your phone is just not
large enough.
Now, this is a really good way to be creative and use your
iPad that you have maybe laying around as a larger screen to
interface with your Backbone One controller.
Unfortunately, there's no way to adapt your backbone via
breakout cable to a USB key iPad.
So what that means is that they don't make a lightning female
to USB C male cable that works like this.
Unfortunately, those types of cables do not work
with this setup.
So if you find one, let me know.
But I have not been able to find one.
And I probably bought about 15 different cables, and none
of them worked.
The total cost, the solution was about 15 dollars
for this cable.
And then obviously the backbone, one controller,
if you already had that.
Now, in my opinion, this is a really great way of adapting
old technology to new use cases because I have this iPad.
It's five years old.
It really is almost at the end of its lifecycle.
And now I can renew its life by using this 15-hour cable with
my backbone and get a better gaming experience when I don't
want to use my phone as a gaming machine.
And this is really a great experience.
Shout out to the backbone sub-Reddit,
where someone actually found this cable.
I'll link down their profile below so you can even think if
you're on Reddit.
But again, if you can use your iPad, which is
lightning-based with this cable,
for fifteen dollars, I think it's a no-brainer because it
adds so much value because you have a larger screen.
So if you had any other iPad, as long as
it was lightning-based, not USB C like an iPad Pro or an
iPad Air, you'd be able to do this.
So let me know down the comments below what
questions you have.
Hopefully you found something useful,
because this, in my opinion, was a lot of fun to make.
I really love gaming.
Hopefully, you do, too.
My name is Mike, and this is Tech 24/7 TV.
Folks.
I will catch you in the next one.