on iPhone gamepad is connecting but no event

[amitu]

gamepad tester websites show most of gamepad controls working so its not safari / gamepad etc issue, its our code.

[amitu]

Investigation Summary

What we tested

• iPhone with DualShock 4 controller connected via Bluetooth
• iOS Safari accessing the app via HTTPS (ngrok tunnel)
• Tested against third-party gamepad tester websites for comparison

Observations

1. Gamepad is detected correctly: Gamepad connected: DUALSHOCK 4 Wireless Controller Extended Gamepad (id: 0),
   axes: 4, buttons: 17
2. Gamepad state never updates:
   - gamepad.timestamp() is always 0
   - Axis values remain at initial state [0.0, -0.0, 0.0, -0.0]
   - Button presses not detected
3. Third-party gamepad tester sites also stopped working after navigating between tabs/sites - the gamepad appears
   to get into a "stale" state where it's connected but not updating

Root cause

This appears to be a known iOS Safari/WebKit bug. The Gamepad API detects the controller but doesn't properly
update the gamepad state after initial connection. References:

• Need to spec liveness of Gamepad objects w3c/gamepad#8 (Gamepad object liveness)
• [Kha] gamepad ios safari not working armory3d/armory#1573 (iOS Safari gamepad not working)
• Gamepad Support seems to cause break in Safari (iOS and Desktop) SplatJS/splat-ecs#38 (Safari gamepad issues)

Current status

• Gamepad works on desktop browsers (tested on Mac)
• iOS Safari gamepad support is broken due to WebKit bugs

Future investigation ideas

1. Try using gamepadconnected/gamepaddisconnected events instead of/in addition to polling navigator.getGamepads()
2. Test on different iOS versions to see if newer Safari versions have fixes
3. Check if there's a specific user gesture requirement to "activate" gamepad input on iOS
4. Compare our implementation with working gamepad tester sites' JavaScript to see if they use a different approach