Google's Android N OS Will Support Pressure-Sensitive Screens (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader writes: In the latest Developer Preview 2 of Android N, Google introduced new "Launcher shortcuts" to the beta OS. It allows developers to "define shortcuts which users can expose in the launcher to help them perform actions quicker." It's reminiscent of Apple's "3D Touch" feature found in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which can allow for specific parts of an app to be displayed in a pop-up menu when users forcefully press on an icon or other miscellaneous piece of information developed with the feature.

As mentioned in Phandroid's report testing the "setDynamicShortcuts(List)" feature, Google offered four different scenarios where Launcher Shortcuts make sense: Navigating users to a particular location in a mapping app, sending messages to a friend in a communication app, playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app, or loading the last save point in a gaming app.
"Google says that the manufacturers who build Android devices wanted this use case addressed by the OS itself," according to The Verge, so that developers "can code for all Android devices instead of reinventing the pressure-sensitive wheel for each OEM."

Comments

Great, so more interfaceless interface.

[PsychoSlashDot]

"Google offered four different scenarios where Launcher Shortcuts make sense: Navigating users to a particular location in a mapping app, sending messages to a friend in a communication app, playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app, or loading the last save point in a gaming app."

How about a button that you can see, that does this stuff when you click it? None of these use-cases justify variable pressure sensitivity. Basically, drawing applications do, and that's about it. If this was actually somehow beneficial, we would've seen pressure-sensitive mouse buttons standardized two decades ago.

Why has this taken so long?

[0ryn]

Capacitive input devices such as touchpad's and touchscreens have always been touch pressure sensitive. It's a very simple principle. The harder you press, the larger the contact area that your finger makes with the screen / touchpad. My PS2 / Serial interface'd ALPS Glidepoint from almost 20 years ago could do this.
I wonder why it's taken so long for someone to realise this could be useful as yet another input vector. I should add that the Glidepoint never used this for input, it just showed a bigger circle on the task tray icon the harder you pressed. My guess is that windows 95 didn't know how to deal with pressure, though things like paint shop pro did work with a pressure sensitive wacom tablet.

Maybe apple don't use this feature, maybe they use a strain gauge in the glass? That said a strain gauge wouldn't work too well at the edge of the screen.

Re:Why has this taken so long?

[thegarbz]

Repeatability. That is all.

Capacitive touchscreens are variable with pressure, but they are also variable with body chemistry, humidity, sweat, whether a person has just washed their hands, etc.

That would make for a very difficult interface if it changed everytime I picked up my device.

Re: The problem is there's no way to know...

[jareth-0205]

Command lines are by nature more intuitive than GUIs. They require you to learn commands

I don't think the word 'intuitive' means what you think it means.

Re:Quick, defend Google!

[cyberchondriac]

But Fandroids would be the first to scream that Apple is copying Android if Google did it first. Both Apple and Google clearly get ideas from each other, the fanboi cult behavior exists on both sides and really just needs to stop. In this particular case, Apple beat Google to the punch - why didn't Google think of implementing this before, if it's such a commonplace technology? Apple was the one here to invest in it first, and see how the market responded. In other cases, Google was.