Get Gamepad Buttons on Your iPhone with GPod

Australian design firm CP Design has come up with the GPod: a slide-on iPhone case that adds a directional-pad to the left of your iPhone and four individual action buttons on the right. The pad also has buttons for start and select, and a pass-through slot for the iPhone’s home button at the bottom of the display.

The GPod is just a design, and the firm is looking for companies to assist in commercializing the device, as well as making games that support its button layout. The developers built two prototypes, one black and the other white, and used them with a custom emulated version of Donkey Kong Country for the SNES to test the GPod. The original design was specifically for the original iPhone, but CP Design is planning a new model for the iPhone 3G and 3Gs, if the project gets off the ground