Apple's iPhone 6S & 6S Plus Rumored To Pack Second Generation Force Touch Interface

Apple is set to unveil its next iPhone 6 iterations this coming Wednesday, and as has become the norm, we know a lot about what they are bringing to the table (or at least we think we do). If you can believe it, though, there's one aspect of the projected forthcoming iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, that has only just been unearthed.

As we've known for a while, the new iPhones are going to implement Force Touch, a feature that will let users tap the screen with a variable amount of pressure to activate a certain action. What's new, is that this isn't the same version of Force Touch seen on the Apple Watch; instead, it's second-gen technology, and will be referred to as "3D Touch Display".

As 9to5Mac reports, the "3D" comes in by way of allowing users to apply three levels of pressure. In the music app, for example, pressing hard enough will spawn a menu that will allow users to add a track to a playlist or sync it for offline use. App icons will also be able to take advantage of 3D Touch, which could prove incredibly useful. Imagine being able to press hard enough on an app icon that you are automatically brought to a specific place in the app. With a browser, for example, a harder press could bring you directly to your favorites, rather than just the start page.

Given 3D Touch's usefulness, it seems likely that Apple will try to roll out the technology to any other one of its product lines where it makes sense. In fact, its capabilities would even be useful on MacBooks. Perhaps Apple will eventually release a new keyboard that implements the technology for desktop use.

It's not clear at this point how Apple's going to let third-party developers take advantage of 3D Touch, but we hope it'd be open-ended; there is huge potential for a feature like this, and I admit that I look forward to seeing it mocked on the Android side.