Tap confirmation, contextual clicking, deeper interaction models and maybe even hover states await us. If you browse it, you could be getting a peek at the future of Apple’s screen technology - Minsky actually investigated the use of this method to create a display that could simulate textures.Ī WSJ report from earlier today says that Apple is integrating its Force Touch technology into future iPhones - which would detect how hard a screen is pressed. Some of the earliest research into using LFFs to create haptic feedback was done by Margaret Minsky, and summarized in a 1995 dissertation called “ Computational haptics : the Sandpaper system for synthesizing texture for a force-feedback display“. “I had carpal tunnel syndrome a while back and tapping the trackpad with the side of my thumb made the rest of my fingers go tingly.” “The trackpad sounds great for people with repetitive stress injury,” says our own Catherine Shu. People with muscular atrophy or conditions that cause pain on certain finger movements will likely benefit. Playing with that led to a distinct difference in the pressure needed to trigger a click. And there are accessibility benefits here because there is an adjustable sensitivity. In my opinion, it’s completely indistinguishable from a physical press. If you’re worried about losing your ‘click’, don’t worry. The effect is done so well that you actually feel like you’re pressing down deeper into a trackpad that still isn’t moving at all. The Force Touch feature of the new trackpad allows you to press ‘deeper’, giving you additional levels of tapping feedback. This can give you the feel of a ‘clickable’ surface or even depth. This feedback relies on phenomenon called lateral force fields (LFFs), which can cause humans to experience vibrations as haptic ‘textures’.

This feedback fools your finger into believing that you’ve pressed down on a hinged button, the way your current trackpad works. There is a set of vibrating motors underneath that provides ‘force feedback’, also known as haptics in some applications. There is an audible ‘click’ sound (that’s what the silly picture below is, me listening) and it does in fact feel like it clicks, but that is merely an illusion. When you ‘click’ it, it ‘clicks’, but it doesn’t actually click. But I did an informal poll and a lot of folks did not, so I thought I’d mention it. If you’ve been scouring the coverage of Apple’s new MacBook, you’ll probably already know this.

Apple mouse pad