I tried out the Nimbus with a variety of Apple TV games, including Disney Infinity 3.0, Transistor and the woefully underplayed Steven Universe: Attack the Light. The buttons are well-spaced, the analog sticks have a nice bit of resistance to them and the shoulder buttons feel sufficiently pliable. The Nimbus is a thing of beauty when it comes to playing games, even though I would have liked the peripheral to be a little heavier. Having to update firmware via a mobile app may eventually work against the controller, too, especially if consumers use it exclusively with an Apple TV and never hook it up to a mobile device.
This is too bad, since among Macs, iPhones, iPads and Apple TVs, the Apple TV is the system that benefits the most from having a controller. However, the app is not available on the Apple TV.
#Nimbus controller mac how to
You can use the mobile app to upgrade the Nimbus' firmware, watch a series of tutorials to learn how to use the device or use it to keep track of which iOS games are compatible with controllers. If you hook the Nimbus up to an iPad or iPhone, there's a mobile app that goes along with it, although the app is quite conservative by gaming-software standards. The app is not available on the Apple TV, which is too bad since the Apple TV is the system that benefits the most from having a controller. Since the Apple TV has no USB port, you'll have to either plug it into the wall or a nearby computer to charge it, and that can be a bit of a pain. On the flip side, however, it also takes a long time to charge, and requires a Lightning cable rather than a standard micro USB. SteelSeries claims that the Nimbus boasts more than 40 hours of battery life, and while we didn't have enough time to test that claim fully, it seems like a reasonable estimate based on my experience with it. Unlike some other mobile controllers, the Nimbus runs on a rechargeable battery rather than replaceable AAs.