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iPhone 6S New Feature: Force Touch
New submitter WarJolt writes: Apple is adding Force Touch to their iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. I'm not sure if Force Touch enough to convince an Android user like myself to switch, but there are definitely some interesting possibilities for app developers. A challenge for App developers will be to make apps compatible with both Force Touch iPhones and non-force touch iPhones. (Here's the Bloomberg report Forbes draws from.)
FP
Neat to see ios is catching up to android, you've only been able to get pressure sensitive devices with android for about four years now.
Paving the way for Force Lightening, Force Storm, Plague, Fear, Choke ... may the Force be with you, Apple.
in this case the rape culture involves gay men since it's apple
Doesn't Apple even check for trademarks? "Force Touch" has, for decades, belonged to Bill Cosby.
Hey janitors that run this site, don't link to Wikipedia or anything to tell us what "force touch" is.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
So is Apple now committing a human rights violation by forcing me to touch .... or is the Iphone 6 really that 6xy?
at the bottom it says:
"Bloomberg reported in 2013 that Apple was planning to add pressure-sensitive displays to the iPhone."
so just 3 years after the news report, here they are almost ready to sell them.
I would like to applaud Apple with their latest release in their prestigious line of Idiot Detection Devices (iDD).
Anyone who purchases an iPhone for private use with their own funds is incapable of performing basic consumer research.
I'm working on a self-destruct app that uses Force Touch. The harder the force, the quicker it destroys the device. My early tests show pliers and vices provide the best force input. It doesn't seem to detect blenders, but that seems to work anyway, due to some unknown bug. Work in progress.
Wow the first in a series of Jedi powers! I want Force Push or Force Speed next!
Given the numerous Android security problems and APPs with hidden data collection issues, I'ld say forget 'Force Touch' as a reason to switch.
Someone stole my balls. If anyone knows where they are, please let me know. They were here last night, but when I woke up they were gone. I'm afraid to talk to the police.
Smash touch!
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
A key part of the usability of these glass-covered capacitive-touch devices is that you can very lightly touch the surface and it'll react. Once you get the idea into people's minds that if something isn't working, you should try pressing harder (Force Touching) then frustrated people will think "I'm not pressing hard enough" and press harder and harder until they crack their screen. I've seen people with styluses repeatedly stabbing touchscreens like a psycho killer, because the device wasn't responding the way they wanted (usually because they were missing the button).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I guess I'm confused, but we've developed Android applications for years, one of which involves an interactive water surface. We made use of pressure sensitivity and it worked fine. Is this different somehow? I thought this was a bog-standard feature for a capacitive touch screen?
I mean, I guess you could make your UI use it like a right/left click on a mouse or something, but outside of a controlled environment it seems like it'd be kind of finicky.
Android has so many strikes against it, I just cannot fathom why an intelligent, informed individual who has the choice would pick it over iOS. A new feature like Force Touch would be like icing on the cake.
also the Mafia, MAFIAA, and other rent-seeking organizations.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
the only thing i can think of that would get me to switch to ios over android would be if they came out of the box with the ability to sideload apps without jailbreaking
It has this. Just enroll the device as a developer device, and compile the code, or enroll it as a corporate device, if you want to use precompiled code you trust but that Apple won't allow into the App store because Apple doesn't trust it.
If you mean thing like side-loading just random crap, like if I were a private detective hired by your wife, and had 60 seconds of access to your iPhone, I could sideload some serious backdoor onto your phone to enable me to monitor your texts, phone calls, email, Facebook, and so on ... I'm pretty sure no one wants someone else to be able to load that kind of crap on their phones, but if you can do it, they can do it, too.
"This is a strength tester app. When I say 'go!', tap the screen as hard as you can!"
... Is your app Jedi compatible?!?
... Is your app Jedi compatible?!?
This is the best restaurant I ever eat in
Bloomberg printing an unsourced rumor does not magically turn it into news. Forbes citing Bloomberg printing an unsourced rumor also does not magically make it news.
Why would something like Force Touch convince someone to switch from Android unless they're the kind of people who constantly rush to any new flashy thing? For one, Force Touch seems like a terrible, unintuitive gimmick that isn't easily discoverable and pretty much all the things you can do with it can be also be done without with little effort. Secondly, if someone is using Android they're likely using it because it isn't iOS; cheaper, more-varied hardware, not-so-tightly controlled lock-in and thus much better access to tools from more than one vendor, dual- and even triple-SIM phones and so on.
The order of the day seems to be trying to invent solutions for problems that don't exist.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Force Touch could yield to interesting app behaviour.
But I am more interested ln the expected camera improvements. Apple bought a company specialising in a new kind of multi sensor camera thet promises much improved picture quality, more so in low light and it could be used for 3d pictures.
i have the 6 plus which is already capable of surprisingly acceptable pictures, and if the low light quality still improves then the phone could convince me to leave my bigger gear more often at home.
Now your iPhone can scream "Ouch!" when you hit it with a hammer out of frustration. :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What I don't understand is how Apple will use this to their advantage in their own native apps. The one thing I see android apps doing well that Apple has never done is having holding your finger down bring up a menu to interact with the item you're holding down. Apple always does these hideous "swipe right to do X" and "swipe right to do Y", when in fact the most obvious and intuitive interface is to press and hold down to bring up options.
The "press and hold for menu" is so unbelievably simple, intuitive, and allows for multiple interactive options. Swiping only allows for two possible actions, and it's bloody impossible to remember whether you delete by swiping right or left (and then what does swiping the opposite direction even do?). You don't need pressure sensitivity for this, and yet Apple has avoided this functionality. What will force touch add to the native OS experience? Probably nothing useful.
I have an iPhone 6, previously had an iPhone 4. I prefer iOS to android, and yet this lack of the intuitive press-and-hold function irks me.
I thought "force touch" was only something that child molesters did. I guess the words "pressure" and "sense" couldn't be combined in any way to portray what's actually going on.
I assume Android users prefer Android because of the things it has, not those it lacks. How would something that is not on Android convince them to switch? I have several iPhones (up to the iPhone 6 plus) due to my job, but I have never actually used them as phones, they sit on my desk due to their limited OS. Thinking about it, the thing that annoys me most when I use them is probably the lack of a "back" button that works outside just the App level. The fact that I can't connect mass storage devices to them, or at least connect them as a mass storage device is also a serious drawback considering what I usually want to do with a phone. I am not in love with Android. In fact, my first Android phone was the first phone I ever had that I considered a regression from my previous (an N9), mainly due to the OS having a much worse UI than the swipe UI of Maemo/Meego (and of course other drawbacks - I only switched because Meego was abandoned and it lacked some essential apps). So for me it does not seem hard to make something more usable than Android, others have already done it. But force touch is not what is missing.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Apple has become more about marketing than technology these days.
As far as "Force Touch" goes, remember: No means No.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I thought Force Touch was when you were made to close ads before using the app.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
I use press-and-hold in my own apps and UIKit even includes UILongPressGestureRecognizer as a pre-configured subclass to use for detecting such events. This has been available since whichever iOS introduces gesture recognizers (5 or 6, I think).
ronf... ronf... zzzzz... zzzzzzz
You have finally realized that your touchscreen controller actually provides a pressure strength and are able to hype it up like it's revolutionary.
Not even if we realize the limitations of pressure sensing of a standard capacitive controller and add additional sensors to make the detection less granular is this something new. I don't know how long Synaptics (touchpad manufacturer) have had their capacitive+force sensor combination available but it is at least two years, but even ignoring that the idea and implementation isn't anything new.
Bah.
Great - no need to worry, any more, about butt-dialing your phone. Now, with butt-apping (TM-pending), who knows what we'll be able to achieve, or order!
I can install at the humble bundle apks I bought.
Why would it make you want to switch? Android apps have been doing it since at least 2011. Android's touch API communicates sufficient information to implement this if you wish.
But this being Apple, they will give it a fancy name, everyone will think they invented it, and they will pretend like they invented it. Just like Siri, which came out after I'd been doing searches, sending texts, and starting apps by voice on Android for at least a year.
Apple should have higher priorities than force touch.
For instance, make a power-on button that works for more than a couple years.
Last three iPhones my wife and I bought had the power switch become less responsive (requiring heavy pressure to register) after about three years.
Or, of course, just expect everyone to throw away their phones in 2 years. That seems to be what everyone does, anyway.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
If Force Touch was useful, we'd have it for mouse clicks. We don't.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
To be fair, they add in technology to marketing, with the end result being marketing gimmicks.
A whole new level and dimension of Fart Apps, of course!
They still haven't made a fart app for the iWatch though. I guess 10,000 of them for the iPhone was more of a trend in the early App Store. But this new gimmick opens up new possibilities! (wet farts if you press hard, gurgled farts if you have liver cancer, etc.)
Is this just an upgrade on the standard Breaking Force feature that comes with all current iphone screens. If you are using Android then you may not know about this novel iphone feature. To enable Breaking Force on your iphone you simply touch / drop the device onto a surface. The screen then displays a spider web pattern. You then pay £100 to have it pattern removed and start again.
...I'm not a Jedi.
If you take that comment and swap 'iOS' and 'Android', you go from a -1 to +5.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Will it suck like force touch on the Apple Watch, and the stupid microswitch on the Apple Magic Trackpads?
I have both. The problem with the watch is that it makes both force touch and normal touch suck. You have to be dainty with a normal touch or it is not recognized. And force touch seems to require the some gorilla approach as the trackpad. Ow! It hurts my thumb!
Fortunately, Apple long ago realized how awful that switch on the trackpads is (this started with the notebooks, and then they decided this dysfunctional design was so good that they spun it off as a separate piece for desktops...) that they fiddled the software to let you configure it to just ignore any errant click and just let you tap without activating the switch. Which is the way I use it. You know, except when you tap too hard, and then the switch does activate and you hurt your thumb.
I want unforce touch. That is, distinguish between hovering over the surface and finger actually on the surface. It might make browser "hover" not suck again. On the other hand, naw. It will bring back those awful Microsoft-y cascading menus that are designed as a test of your skill in precision mouse pathing...
There is a reason Sony dropped pressure sensitive buttons on the DualShock 4, no one used it.
Good-bye
We already have enough technologies to make user input ambiguous: (1) My Synaptics touchpad thinks my index finger is a two finger gesture about half the time. There doesn't seem to be an adjustment to reduce sensitivity for this. (A middle finger gesture doesn't work any better, tempting as it is.) (2) Kindle Fire sometimes thinks that holding it by the black border, well outside the screen area, is a tap on whatever is the nearest screen-edge icon. (3) Disuse of the Accelerator Key input method, making me aim my carpal tunnel at everything (including targets obviously sized in the days of 14" 800x600 pixel displays).
There are many ways Force Touch might miss: An arm-length reach for a phone on the table will not have accurate force input. Perhaps potholes, too much coffee, or Parkinson's or other tremor disease. ([sarcasm]Assuming smartphones are otherwise disability-friendly.[/sarcasm])
If by 'these days' you mean "always", then yes. Or does the iconic the I'm a mac/I'm a PC campaign, the fruity iMac design ads (no specs or mention of the whammy that is the first major OEM to remove floppy drives --but "whoa, the colors!" sold tons) and even the iconic Apple 1984 ad two decades ago.
I barely skimmed this find, but here are some yewels about this 30-year old piece of evidence for what you call 'these days':
* A quote that "It was the first time that anybody did something so outrageous on the Super Bowl"
* and: [quote]The commercial was also pivotal to Apple as it positioned itself as an innovator in the field. The Macintosh computer itself was revolutionary in that it was the first affordable, personal computer to include a graphical-user interface and allow even novice computer users to easily operate the machine with its mouse. The ad helped cement Apple's reputation as an innovator, and presented a contrast between itself and the staid marketing of industry giant IBM. [quote]
If helping cement someone's reputation as *anything* with a single 30 second ad spot on the most expensive airtime slot ISN'T marketing, and isn't proof that 30 years ago they were just as brand conscious, then something's seriously missing from time perceptions. And that was with a near-failed ad project, too.
I loved my college powermacG3 chugging along in a mac-ruled campus, but there are tons of little heavy-handed design regressions that I cannot forgive any company. I reluctanctly pass on many new products because no advertisement can *accurately* give you half the information in a single 10-line spec list... nobody wants to alienate their users with gigabytes, hard numbers or even detailed product mugshots until you're already on their website making product comparisons with their javascript eyes letting them breathe down your neck
women shout, "Yes - they can finally teach men various degrees of touch pressure!"
sorry...couldn't resist what with being a woman and all...