This Joy Con-esque controller may look like any other mobile gamepad—but on paper at least, it packs a few surprises. Let's unfurl a few of them here:

D-pad and thumbstick on the left. A-B-X-Y buttons and thumbstick on the right. Shoulder and trigger buttons on each side.

Lightning port for passthrough charging and connecting accessories.

3.5 mm headphone jack—a welcome sight here, after being dropped from the iPhone in 2016 and never seen again (well, almost never). Welcome back, little buddy!

Specialty buttons for instant muting, launching the Backbone app, and recording gameplay.

A couple interesting things missing: Bluetooth and an internal battery. The Backbone One connects to—and draws power from—your iPhone directly.

We can't decide if having no battery and no Bluetooth is a feature—but it seemingly reduces the number of things to go wrong.