“Apple is expected to unveil its latest device, the iPhone 6s (or 7), on September 9 in what should be a sigh of relief for investors, who have had a tough ride this week,” S. Kumar writes for TIME Magazine. “Despite CEO Tim Cook’s assurance that China’s economic difficulties should not adversely impact the tech giant’s sales, the company’s stock is still trading below its $115 a share level just a few weeks ago, even after the robust market rally on Thursday, and far below its 52-week high of $134.54 a share.”
“The new iPhone is crucial for Apple to restore investors’ confidence, and there’s a good chance it will for several reasons,” Kumar writes. “The phone will have a 12 megapixel camera, a big increase from previous versions; 4k video recording; faster processing speed; longer battery life… But what’s expected to be the most important new feature of all: force touch, a technology that enables a device to distinguish between light and strong taps by a user and assign different functions to them, as it currently does on the Apple Watch and MacBooks.”
“Applied to the iPhone, this could potentially be the killer feature that solidly differentiates the new iPhone from its predecessors by enhancing ease-of-use and utility,” Kumar writes. “An improvement to the user experience has always been at the heart of Apple’s success with new models and the force touch feature can provide this. Force touch is also new enough to encourage buyers to replace their existing phones…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Force Touch will be more important than most people think.
And Android, littered across a veritable junkyard full of disparate devices, will not be able to follow. – MacDailyNews, February 28, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Revealed: How Force Touch works and feels in Apple’s next-gen iPhone 6s – August 10, 2015
Apple’s Force Touch: The future of mobile interfaces – August 4, 2015
Why Force Touch on the iPhone will be awesome – July 29, 2015
Apple’s Force Touch iPhone 6s to be major differentiator, put rivals at further disadvantage – July 6, 2015
Apple assemblers begin making next-gen iPhones with Force Touch – June 27, 2015
Analyst: Apple’s ‘iPhone 6s’ to feature stronger 7000 series aluminum, slightly thicker for Force Touch – June 17, 2015
Apple’s new Force Touch patent application reveals stylus, virtual paint brush, 3D buttons interactions – May 28, 2015
Apple’s forthcoming iOS 9 supports ‘iPhone 6s’ Force Touch – May 26, 2015
Apple patent application reveals work on Force Touch for iOS devices and more – March 5, 2015
Force Touch rumored to arrive exclusively on ‘iPhone 6s Plus’ – April 2, 2015
Apple’s next-gen iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus to feature Force Touch – February 28, 2015
“…force touch, a technology that enables a device to distinguish between light and strong taps…”
People keep saying this, which implies that force touch only distinguishes between two levels of pressure. Yes, that’s how the software is currently implemented on the watch and the trackpad. But the force touch hardware senses the full range of pressure, leaving open the possibility of much granular control.
@ chrish1961 – while that is true – it is sort of useless. I, for one, would rather Apple focus on fixing the absolute interface and performance disaster that is iTunes and the interface catastrophe that is iOS Music. It would be preferable to fix those things and then add new features after they have fixed the problem that they created. Timm Cookie seems to be leading by delegation, which isn’t serving Apple well.
If Apple were one person, then yes. But the engineers who work on apple music are different from ones that are on iOS and phone hardware.
There is no reason why Apple couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
This may take a while to be important. Apps need to take advantage of it, but that means “older” models (6/6+!!) would not be able to use those features UNLESS app designers offered an alternative way to access said features (which might defeat the point of having Force Touch in the first place). So, do you add features and exclude hundreds of millions of iPhone users or do you find an alternative (which would allow Android to copy the functionality without actually having Force Touch)?
Siri is a good example. You can search the web without Siri, it’s just much easier with Siri. You can call your friend without Siri- it’s just much easier with Siri. I’m not sure how this will play out as I cannot imagine that Force Touch to be on par in usefulness as Siri is today. It all depends on what uses are actually implemented…
Looks to me like this is from FORTUNE, not TIME?
Apple Investors have not had a tough ride this week.
W*nkers and day traders who play with Apple shares may have had a less than successful fortnight.
Not sure how one feature like Force Touch is going to instill confidence to investors when investors believe China iPhone sales are going to fall flat no matter what due to the flagging China economy. Hoping that Force Touch will make users of older iPhones upgrade seems like a long shot. I don’t think there are tens of millions of iPhone users who are already happy with with their current iPhones looking to upgrade sooner than necessary. Most people do keep their iPhones for at least two years.
I’m sure in a couple years, iOS compatibility issues with stem from a lack of Force Touch, and not as much processing power. It seems like it will open many doors, and then many more once Apple can be assured every supported device is guaranteed to have it.