Good news! The PS4 controller's Back Button Attachment works on iOS.

News
By
published
Dualshock 4 Back Button Attachment Hero Image Review
Dualshock 4 Back Button Attachment Hero Image Review (Image credit: iMore / Samuel Tolbert)

What you need to know

  • Sony released the Back Button Attachment for its controllers.
  • It adds two buttons to the rear of DualShock 4 controllers.
  • And they work with Apple devices, too.

Sony recently released the DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment as a way to allow gamers to move some of the buttons to the back of their controllers. They can re-map one of 16 functions to those buttons, and they all work with iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, and Macs.

We'd assumed that would be the case, but the folks at Cult of Mac have had Sony confirm as much.

"It is compatible," a company representative said. "The Back Button Attachment feeds directly into the DualShock4 button prompts as if they were the exact buttons pressed."

That means that if you map one of those new buttons to be the "X" button, Apple devices will think that the real "X" button has been pressed whenever the attachment is used. As far as the device is concerned, nothing special happened.

In turn, any device that supports the DualShock 4 Controller should work just fine with the Back Button Attachment. All you need to do now is find somewhere with one in stock. And that's easier said than done.

DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment Reco
Expanded options
DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment

Up your game

If you need a little bit more flexibility to perform actions in games, the DualShock 4 Back Button Attachment may be the perfect thing for you. You can save up to three profiles, each with two remapped buttons. It's worth noting, however, that the attachment is proving to be low in stock at the moment.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.