iPhone 6S With Force Touch Has Reportedly Entered Production

Force Touch sounds like something you might learn while attending the Jedi Academy. It's actually Apple's nomenclature for what it considers "the most significant new sensing capability since multi-touch" and will reportedly be included on new versions of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. If Apple sticks to its past naming schemes, you can expect the handsets to be called the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

It's said that Apple's already begun early production of its revised iPhone 6 models. Like the ones available now, they'll come with 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display options and sport a similar physical design. Those who claim to have knowledge of the matter say the next iPhone models may go into volume production beginning next month.

Adding Force Touch will give the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus some new capabilities. Apple introduced Force Touch with its Apple Watch and new MacBook, the former featuring a pressure sensitive display and the latter armed with a pressure sensitive multi-touch trackpad.

On the Apple Watch, Force Touch is used to navigate additional options. When a user presses firmly on the display, it brings up additional controls in apps like Messages, Music, and Calendar, as opposed to registering as a simple finger tap. Force Touch allows for things like selecting different watch faces, pausing a song or movie, searching an address in Maps, and more.

It works similarly on the new Mac, though it's more of a novelty than a must-have feature. Functionality depends on the app -- like the Apple Watch, Force Touch on the new Mac can be used to pause movies and things of that nature. It can also be used to change the size of brush strokes, where more pressure leads to thicker lines.

Those are the types of functions that will find their way to the iPhone when Force Touch is ported over, though the real fun could begin when developers find creative ways to take advantage of the technology.