The quick, legit route (iPad)

This might be the route if you don’t have time to tinker

Subscribe to Apple Arcade and pair the controller to your iPad Pro - done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK6SGO689PQ

Apple One sounds like a good deal for $19.99 because a family of 5 can play games on Apple Arcade, watch original content on Apple TV+, listen to music ad-free Apple Music (esp if you don’t have Spotify) and split 200GB of iCloud storage!

Pairing your gamepad

Ideally, it just works like in the video, if it doesn’t follow these steps below.

on iPadOS

  1. hold down B while turning on the gamepad. this puts it in “mac mode” [this step may only be necessary with Zero 2 & I've had better luck w X+start lately]
  2. hold the button at the top to put it in "knight rider" mode with the LEDs going back and forth. now your pad is in “bluetooth pairing mode”
  3. go to Accessibility → Switch Control → Switches → Bluetooth Devices...
  4. select “8BitDo Lite gamepad”

In the future, it should autoconnect to your iPad when you turn your gamepad on

In the event you connected it with another device (like your mac), see section on switching

after the first time, you can use Settings → Bluetooth (unless it has issues pairing)

If you still have trouble, verify gamepad pairs to your mac (steps below) to ensure it’s not a dud

on macOS

  1. Hold down B while turning on the gamepad. this puts it in “mac mode” (it may already be in this mode from above) [this step may only be necessary with the Zero 2] [official macOS pairing mode is A+start]
  2. Hold the button at the top to put it in "knight rider" mode with the LEDs going back and forth. now your pad is in “bluetooth pairing mode”
  3. Go to Settings → Bluetooth