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 In its latest iPhones, Apple is expected to include what it calls
Force Touch, allowing users to interact more intuitively with their
devices via a pressure-sensitive screen which mimics the feel and
response of real buttons.
In the long run, the technology also promises new or better
applications, from more lifelike games and virtual reality to adding
temperature, texture and sound to our screens.
"Force Touch is going to push the envelope of how we interact with
our screens," says Joel Evans, vice president of mobile enablement
at Mobiquity, a mobile consultancy.
Apple hasn't disclosed what it will announce at an event on
Wednesday, but reports have said it will unveil new iPhones
incorporating a version of the Force Touch technology already in
some laptop touchpads and its Watches. Apple declined to comment.
As with previous forays, from touch screens to fingerprint sensors,
Apple isn't the first with this technology, but by combining some
existing innovations with its own, it could leverage its advantage
of control over hardware, interface and the developers who could
wrap Force Touch into its apps.
"Here we go again. Apple's done it with gyroscopes, accelerometers,
they did it with pressure sensors, they've done it with compass,
they've been great at expediting the adoption of these sensors,"
said Ali Foughi, CEO of US-based NextInput, which has its own
technology, trademarked ForceTouch. "Apple is at the forefront."
TOUCHY FEELY
Haptic technology - a tactile response to touching an interface -
isn't new, even in mobile devices. Phones have long vibrated to
alert users of incoming calls in silent mode, or when they touch an
onscreen button.
But efforts to go beyond that have been limited.
BlackBerry <BB.TO> incorporated pressure sensing into its Storm
phone in 2008. And Rob Lacroix, vice president of engineering at
Immersion Corp <IMMR.O>, said his company worked in 2012 with
Fujitsu <6702.T> on the Raku-Raku Smartphone, an Android phone that
could distinguish between a soft and firm touch to help users
unfamiliar with handheld devices.
But most efforts have been hamstrung by either a poor understanding
of the user's needs, or technical limitations. A vibrating buzz, for
instance, has negative connotations, causing most people to turn off
any vibration feature, says James Lewis, CEO of UK-based Redux,
which has been working on similar touch technology for several
years.
The technology powering vibrations is also primitive, he said,
meaning there's a slight delay and a drain on the battery. Early
versions of pressure-sensing technology also required a slight gap
between screen and enclosure, leaving it vulnerable to the elements.
Apple seems to have solved such problems, experts said, judging from
their trackpads and the Watch. Indeed, the trackpad carries the same
sensation of a physical click of its predecessors, but without the
actual pad moving at all.
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The result: In the short term, Force Touch may simply make
interacting with a screen more like something we'd touch in real
life - a light switch, say, or a physical keyboard. With Force
Touch, the device should be able to tell not only whether we are
pressing the screen, but how firmly. It should in turn respond with
a sensation - not just a vibration, but with a click - even if that
click is itself a trick of technology.
"What we're going to see initially is putting life back into dead
display," said Redux's Lewis. "We just got used to the cold feel of
glass."
HARD PRESSED
To be sure, mobile is not the first industry to flirt with haptics.
For example, for car drivers, Redux demonstrates a tablet-like
display which creates the illusions of bumps and friction when you
run your fingers over the glass, mimicking physical buttons and
sliders so your eyes don't need to leave the road.
Mobiquity's technical adviser Robert McCarthy points to several
potential uses of Apple's technology - measuring the force of touch
when entering a password, say, to indicate how confident the user is
of their selection, or keying in a numeric passcode using different
pressure levels as an extra layer of security.
While Apple's adoption of the technology has awoken the mobile
industry to its possibilities, it was pipped to the post by Chinese
handset maker Huawei [HWT.UL], which this month unveiled one model
with what it also tagged Force Touch technology. Pressing harder in
a photo app, for example, allows you to zoom in on a picture without
the usual two-finger spread.
Other manufacturers are exploring how to make touching a device more
friendly, and more advanced, says Freddie Liu, CFO of Taiwan-based
TPK Holding Co Ltd, an Apple supplier.
"This is just the beginning for Force Touch," he said.
(Reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff and Michael Gold, with additional
reporting by Reiji Murai in TOKYO; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
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