A Winning Gesture

Force Touch is poised to rule all Apple devices

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Confession: I’ve pushed the screen of my iPhone extra hard a number of times the past few weeks. Not out of anger or frustration, but out of habit. The Apple Watch has already ruined me.

I know this feeling of ridicule well. I can’t tell you how many times in the post-iPad world that I’ve tried to touch the screen of my MacBook. It’s basically a weekly occurrence if not more at this point. And now the same type of muscle memory is tainting my iPhone usage due to Apple Watch.

As you undoubtedly know by now, one of the core bits of functionality of Apple Watch revolves around Force Touch. That is, pushing the screen a bit harder than a regular tap in order to bring up a new set of options. Of all the unique features of Apple Watch, this is probably the most profound. It’s not exactly obvious at first, but once you get it, it’s a natural gesture.

So natural, in fact, that I keep trying to do it on my iPhone. And I’m not the only one. It makes sense, Force Touch should exist on the iPhone (and iPad). It’s sort of ridiculous that there are fake buttons at the bottom of most apps to share something. This should be a Force Touch away.

And it likely will be. Whispers of Force Touch coming to the iPhone began months ago. Again, it just makes sense. But I think people don’t yet understand how big of an impact it will have. It will quite literally add a new layer of interaction to the device. And if it’s opened to third-party developers from the get-go, it will mean a whole range of more robust apps.

Force Touch also just came to the MacBook line as well. It’s interesting on the trackpads here (I’m typing on one right now), but I believe the technology will have a far greater impact on iOS devices because it’s such a natural way to extend the use of restricted touch-sensitive space.

It’s interesting that Apple previewed the technology on the Apple Watch first. It also makes you wonder: if there was no Apple Watch, would Apple have come up with Force Touch at all? Sometimes form births new function. It sure seems like the lack of space on Apple Watch forced Apple to, wait for it… think differently. And all iOS users, Apple Watch owners or not, should benefit as a result.

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Writer turned investor turned investor who writes. General Partner at GV. I blog to think.