“Ridepods”: First iPhone game with Airpods head control

With “Ridepods” the first iPhone game has been released to use Apple’s Airpods as a movement controller. Developer Ali Tanis has misused the spatial audio technology of wireless headphones for game control. Players steer a motorcycle through traffic by tilting their heads to the side – without touching the screen.

The game works with all AirPods models that support Spatial Audio: AirPods Pro of all generations, third and fourth generation AirPods as well as AirPods Max.

The control worked reliably in the test. In the long run, however, users could get neck pain due to the sometimes jerky movements to the left and right. With not so rapid games, the risk should be lower, of course.

Spatial audio apart

Loud a report by The Verge Tanis had to construct the spatial audio function (reverse engineering) to realize his game. However, Apple officially provides developers access to headphone movement data, for example for fitness tracking applications. Since the developer does not use private API, he can also publish the game available free of charge in the App Store.

The game even works with just one airpod in the ear. If you deactivate the automatic head or ear detection in the AirPods settings, you can also use the headphones as a handheld controller-however, this requires significantly more tact.

Technical implementation and game functions

“Ridepods” In addition to the steering by head movement, it also offers a setting for brakes and accelerating by lying the head and backward. However, this function does not show any recognizable effects on the speed of the motorcycle. Players can switch between ego and third-person perspective and share their high scores with an integrated recording function, which also records gameplay and selfie video.

The whole thing looks more like a technical demonstration than a full game. The route runs exclusively straight, without curves. Nevertheless, “Ridepods” shows the potential of headphone -based movement control for mobile games. Since Apple apparently tolerates this possibility, further games could follow that take “ridepods” as a model.

Another developer recently showed what fun with Apple’s sensors. He used the inclination sensor in the MacBook screen to infer the creak of a wooden door.