The Fling Game Controller from Ten One Design is pretty smart. Two suckers cling to the bezel of your iPad, allowing for a spiral of plastic, with a joystick at its centre, to sit happily over the screen. The spring offers more resistance the closer your thumb is to the edge of the spiral, and returns the stick to the centre when you let go.
 
If you’ve ever tried games that include virtual onscreen joysticks you may know just how bad they can become if the controls aren’t implemented properly. If these sticks can solve those problems it may give a lot of games a second lease of life, whether with single dualstick controls. I can also see a few great games that would improve even more from this kind of peripheral: Geometry Wars, N.O.V.A. and Assassin’s Creed to name but a few.
 
There are of course a few that wouldn’t hold up so well, with awkward button placing causing problems, but now that the idea has been put into action games developers may offer control schemes specifically for the devices. We can but hope.