Idea for Controls

Now that game devs have had over two years to get acquainted with the iPhone, I am surprised at how few new control mechanisms have arisen for the device. I have a humble, admittedly nondev, suggestion. Take a look at the Japanese Kana keypad. With it you select a family of kana (ka of ka ki ku ke ko) and then slide your finger to the appropriate one. It means you have five options from one button. So you can select the main button, let's call it A. Popping out from it are four petals with different kana, B, C, D, and E. You can select any of these by flicking north, sout, east or west. So with a simple flick you can not only open up this kana family but also select the appropriate petal.

This approach could really work well with games, I think. You could have an attack button that unpacks five different attacks. When you first see the kana keypad, it may seem overwhelming. But you can quickly develop expertise so that the key petals are almost invisible because you make your flick so quickly. Anyway, maybe devs have checked this out and found problems with it. Just a thought. It just seems strange that so many games get limited by virtual d-pad instead of liberated by multi-touch controls.