Questions

How to play iPhone and iPad games on a Mac with a controller

On a Mac with Apple silicon, many iPhone and iPad games install straight from the Mac App Store and run in a window. Some take a game controller the moment you pair one. Many were built only for a touch screen, and on a Mac that means the pointer stands in for your finger. This page covers all three cases: games that read a controller, the keyboard settings macOS adds to every iPad game, and touch-only games, which is where my app, InputConfig, can help. I will say plainly when you do not need it.

Which Macs can run them

Only Macs with Apple silicon. Intel Macs cannot install iPhone or iPad apps at all. On an Apple silicon Mac, search the Mac App Store and switch the results to iPhone & iPad Apps; those listings say Designed for iPad or Designed for iPhone. Not every game is there, because each developer decides whether to offer their iPhone and iPad app on the Mac, and many large games are not offered.

Once installed, the game sits in Applications and opens like any Mac app. Apple Arcade has its own page: Apple Arcade on a Mac with a controller.

Games that support a controller

Pair the controller in System Settings, Bluetooth, and open the game. A game with controller support on iPad reads a DualSense, DualShock 4, Xbox Wireless or Switch Pro controller on the Mac too, with nothing else to install. On the game's App Store page, a controller icon or a line saying it supports game controllers tells you before you buy. How to connect a controller to a Mac has the pairing button for each pad.

If it works, you are done and you do not need my app. If you only want buttons moved, System Settings, Game Controllers (in the sidebar) can remap controller buttons on macOS 13 or later.

The keyboard settings inside each game

Open the game, then choose the game's name in the menu bar and Settings. iPhone and iPad games get two options there that Mac games do not:

• Touch Alternatives turns keys into touch gestures: the space bar taps the middle of the screen and the arrow keys swipe. It suits games that only need a tap or a swipe.
• Controller Emulation, on the Game Control tab, lets the keyboard stand in for a controller in games that support one, with W, A, S and D as the left stick and the space bar as the A button. Apple added it in macOS 11.3.

Only one of the two can be on at a time. Neither can press a button the game draws in a corner of the screen, which is what most touch games need.

Touch-only games: put a tap on a button

Most iPad games draw their buttons on the screen and expect a finger, and on a Mac a click is a tap. InputConfig can make any controller button click one fixed spot on the screen, so one button presses the game's jump, another its attack, and a third its menu, wherever they sit.

1. Open the game and make it full screen, so its buttons stay in the same place.
2. In InputConfig, add a row for a controller button and set its output to Mouse Button, Left click.
3. Open that row's click menu, which reads at pointer, and choose At a fixed point: use the pointer's position now. Move the pointer onto the game's button. The position is taken about two seconds later.
4. Repeat for each on-screen button. Put Mouse Motion on the right stick if you also want to point and click freely.

The spot is a place on your screen, not in the game, so if the window moves or the game rearranges its buttons, set the spot again. Holding the controller button holds the click, which covers buttons that want a press and hold. A key on the Mac's keyboard can be the input instead of a controller button. I have not tried this in every iPad game, so treat the first session as a test.

InputConfig is free on the Mac App Store. macOS 14 or later, no account, no tracking, open source.

Controllers the game does not see

An iPad game sees the controllers macOS supports: PlayStation, Xbox, Switch Pro, Joy-Cons, MFi pads, and 8BitDo pads in their Apple mode. It does not see 8BitDo pads in X or D mode, USB joysticks and arcade sticks that are plain HID devices, or the Steam Controller. InputConfig reads those and sends keys and clicks, so a game that takes the keyboard gets keys it understands, and a touch-only game gets the fixed-spot clicks above. Whether a game's Controller Emulation turns those keys back into a controller is worth a try; I have not tested that chain yet. The full list is on what controllers work with a Mac.

When the game and InputConfig both hear the pad

InputConfig keeps reading the controller while a game is in front, which is how it works in games without support. In a game that reads the controller itself, every press then arrives twice: once as a controller button and once as the key or click you mapped. Stop InputConfig from the menu bar before playing a game with its own controller support, or give that game a preset that only uses the buttons the game leaves alone.

PlayCover, for games the App Store does not offer

PlayCover is a free, open-source tool that runs iPad apps the Mac App Store does not carry, with its own key mapping for touch games. You supply the app file yourself and it runs outside the App Store, so the game maker's terms may not cover it. It is the route most Mac players take for games like Genshin Impact. If a game is in the Mac App Store, start there.

Questions

Related

• What macOS can do with a controller on its own
• What controllers work with a Mac
• How to connect a controller to a Mac or MacBook
• How to play Genshin Impact on a Mac with a controller
• Among Us on a Mac with a controller
• The binding editor
• Menu bar

Free. macOS 14 or later. No account, nothing leaves your Mac. Open source on GitHub.