Force Touch

Article summary

Force Touch is a haptic pressure-sensing technology developed by Apple Inc. that enables trackpads and touchscreens to sense the amount of force being applied to their surfaces. Software that uses Force Touch can distinguish between various levels of force for user interaction purposes. Force Touch was first unveiled on September 9, 2014, during the introduction of Apple Watch. Starting with the Apple Watch, Force Touch has been incorporated into many Apple products, including MacBooks and the Magic Trackpad 2. Older iPhones have a similar technology known as 3D Touch. The technology brings usability enhancements to the software by offering a third dimension to accept input. Users can apply a force on the input surface to interact with the displayed content in a way that a normal touch would not. 3D Touch enables software features such as pressing hard to access a shortcut menu for an app, and pressing hard on a website link to show a preview of the web page. 3D Touch has three settings for input sensitivity. This enables users to customize a preference of light, medium, or firm press on the iPhone's screen. 3D Touch gives a continuous pressure reading to software that is running on the phone. Force Touch on the other hand, gives only two layers of interaction: A normal click and a force click.…

Key claims

No claims recorded.

Discussion questions

1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
2. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
3. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

No sources recorded.