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

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.

[(Unverified) Posted 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.

[marsman12019 Posted 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

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 9th 2007 11:52PM]

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

[(Unverified) Posted 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.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 11th 2007 6:41PM]

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