We're a self-funded team of enthusiasts who have worked on other projects, including the Open Pandora.

The iControlPad team began as a group of aquantainces, some well known for importing the GP2X and building a community around it. Community really remains the watchword of what we do, so we're very approachable and can be talked to in the forums.

How and when did the iControlPad begin?

I'd been toying with writing iPhone apps when Apple first released their SDK but was put off by the touch screen. Late one night I was talking to Michael Weston and ZodTTD about emulators and just said I wished the iPhone had real controls, or a controller. Suddenly it seemed like a serious idea which I discussed at length with them both; Zod for an insight in to what you could access via the SDK and Michael to start the planning of building it. -Craig

How did the iControlPad change and evolve since its first design?

The original iCP clipped over the phone, and several of these were built and worked and were tested with users. However, it was huge, it was far bigger than the current iCP and it also had horrible controls. It was also a nightmare to build because the two boards had to be connected by a ribbon cable - and it needed a licensed apple dock connector.

Another issue was that it would only work on the original iPhone - nothing else, I worried the iPhone4 might not fit and we knew we had to have a much more clever design - which evolved in to the current product. -Craig

Was bluetooth always on the cards?

We had spoken about it several times in order to support Android. When Apple started suing people using their dock connector without permission we knew we had to bring it forward and make the iCP 100% BT.

The non-BT version was junked quite literally - we threw them away, all 3000. Some say they are buried on the Yorkshire moors along with 1000 GP32 RF link connectors, but I could not possibly comment. -Craig

What did you learn from making the Pandora?

We only use companies who we could visit in person, they cost a lot more than those who made the Pandora (the case was something like $50,000) but it gave us absolute control, and if something went wrong I or Ed could literally drive there and get it sorted out within hours.

This allowed many of the early teething issues to be solved before many units got out the door, and brought us a solid product within a very small time frame - if we had used Chinese companies we would probably still not have a quality product and the forums would be in flames. -Craig