New iPhone 6S "Force Touch" Promises Gaming Revolution

The next iPhone will reportedly feature Apple’s “Force Touch” technology, according to the Wall Street Journal.
An unnamed Apple supplier, who spoke with the WSJ, says that both versions of the new iPhone (the standard and “plus” version) will incorporate the feature, which is currently used in the forthcoming Apple Watch and new Macbook.
Apple’s Force Touch – which is currently used on the new Macbook’s trackpad and the Apple Watch’s display – can tell the difference between a light tap and a heavy tap.
The idea is that you will have new ways to interact with your device depending on the pressure applied. Apple gives the example of using Force Touch in Safari to bring up Wikipedia entries, or pressing hard on an address in the Mail app to quickly bring up a location in Maps.

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Apple has already shown support for Force Touch on mobile devices in its Apple Watch, so it’s reasonable to assume that at some point it will be ported over to its iPhone range.

But what will that mean for future apps and games? Apple has already suggested a couple of scenarios in which Force Touch could work, but there’s likely to be a range of ways creative developers could exploit it. One area I can see this being used in is gaming and potentially solving the issue of displays being cluttered with buttons and controls. Instead of half of the display being taken up by an on-screen d-pad and buttons, controls could be assigned to different levels of applied pressure.
Ian Fogg, Director of Mobile Analysis at IHS technology, argues that Force Touch – and any apps that incorporate it – could be another way for Apple to distance itself from the competition.
“The more unique hardware experiences which Apple delivers, and the more iPhone apps take advantage of those innovations, the more differentiated the iPhone will be from rival Android smartphones. Once an app relies on an Apple-specific hardware feature it increases the difficulty of porting those apps to competitor smartphones.
“Apple has previously demonstrated it sees the integration of hardware, OS and apps as a key differentiator with its early move to 64 bit processors, custom graphics interfaces for game developers, and enhanced security options with Apple Pay for ecommerce apps which leverages Apple’s ‘Touch ID’ fingerprint reader technology.” Fogg argued.
Minimal changes?
The source also suggests that the next iPhone won’t be much of an upgrade on the current flagships. Apple will reportedly stick with the same 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models and maintain a “similar” resolution. There will, however, be an addition to the colour variants with a new pink iPhone joining the gold, space grey and silver options.

However, other reports have surfaced recently suggesting that Apple is looking to add more features to its future iPhone. Last week I wrote about an Apple patent that explored a new method for waterproofing the internal components of a smartphone.
The patent say that Apple will combine a hydrophobic coating (water repellent) with electromagnetic interference shields (typically used in consumer electronics to avoid environmental damage) to protect the internal components of future devices, and possibly a future iPhone.

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