The Apple Watch's most promising feature is one you can't see

The possibilities are endless

Hardware is an arms race, and it's highly likely Force Touch will make its way to future iPhones and even iPads as Apple looks to offer more intuitive functions on its devices.

Despite its arrival on new Apple hardware, it's important to remember that Android already offers similar functionality to Force Touch by means of the "long press."

On iPhones, a longer press merely acts as an aid in selecting or editing text, managing the home screen and deleting apps. Android users can use a long press in an app to bring up a contextual action bar that developers can tailor to their apps. This is very similar to how Apple is using Force Touch on the Apple Watch.

For Apple, Force Touch is an opportunity to provide more robust interface options and reduce the number of swipes and presses users have to perform to complete basic tasks. The absence of contextual menus in iOS apps is something that people (myself included) transitioning from Android immediately notice. By adding contextual menus with Force Touch, Apple could plug what amounts to a gaping hole in the iOS interface. Right now, if a developer wants to add a feature to an iOS app, they have to complicate the UI by adding a button. Force Touch eliminates that need.

We're still in the early days of Force Touch, and how users receive it will play a huge role in how Apple develops it for the future. That being said, it's an intriguing control system that should impact Apple Watch app development from here on out, not to mention influence the design of iDevices to come.

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