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A newly found US patent from Apple has been found that includes a novel mechanism for turning the iPhone home button into a spring loaded joystick at the press of a button.

With the Apple App store going from strength to strength this be a play by Apple towards encouraging game developers to make more sophisticated games for a new iPhone games machine – the same could be said for upcoming versions of the iPad.

It is understood that the joystick would be activated once a user depresses the iPhone home button. The spring loaded button would then pop up into a joystick (not unlike a scaled down version of the joystick controls found on popular games console controllers such as the PS4 or Xbox One).

This could be a smart move from Apple. They were criticised in some quarters after their launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus for being too predictable with little innovation in the new models.

If the new iPhone 7 included a joystick control in some (or all) models it would be a genuine innovation in mobile gaming. It is widely acknowledged that touchscreen game controls are limited in what they can do so by increasing the playability of games, Apple is not only innovating in the mobile phone gaming field but they are encroaching into the mobile games console territory currently dominated by Nintendo and Sony.

Patents tend to be filed in many different areas of innovation (particularly in the US) so there is no guarantee that this new joystick design will ever see the light of day, but what it will do is send shivers down the spine of some senior exec’s at rival phone manufacturers and games console makers.

So the launch of the iPhone 6 came and went with great fanfare at the end of last year…

As usual most of the commentators that were predicting features and specifications weren’t far off the mark. There may have been a few raised eyebrows with the addition of the iPhone 6 Plus which is such a departure in strategy from the typical Apple sized iPhone range, but even that was fairly predictable given the competition from the rival “phablet” manufacturers.

It seems that the most surprising element about the iPhone 6 is that there isn’t one particular aspect of the phone that provides the “wow factor” of previous iPhone models. Sure, the phone is one of the best, if not the best that Apple have made but the tired old phrase “evolution not revolution” couldn’t be more apt when describing the current product lifecycle of the iPhone. Undoubtedly it’s a great phone, but it is up against a bunch of phone models and manufacturers that are starting to step up the game. Don’t be surprised to see something a little more exciting from Apple in the next incarnations (and we aren’t talking about fancy watches either).

What do we think of the iPhone 6? You can read all about it on our new iPhone 6 page along with checking out the specs and the all-important contract deals.

We are all eagerly awaiting the launch plans of the impending iPhone 6, with some in the know apparently leaking images and launch dates for the new device. Obviously some pieces of information are more dubious than others but when you have a news source such as the Wall Street Journal weighing in on the launch date you can safely concede that the details might be more credible than most.

According to the WSJ, Apple plan to launch the devices at an event on 9th September, which is an earlier date than many commentators have predicted (many favour a late September launch date).

What is less in doubt it would appear is that there are due to be two different iPhone 6 models to be launched, a 4.7 inch display model and a 5.5 inch display device.

Perhaps they will look a little like the device in the leaked iPhone 6 pictures that were shown recently on the Mobile Choice website (see pics below).