Apple's new 3D Touch is the killer app for the new iPhone 6s. With 3D Touch, you can do things that were never possible before. It senses how deeply you press the display, letting you do all kinds of essential things more quickly and simply. It's another first-to-market feature for Apple's iPhone that had Android suppliers go into high gear to find a solution so as to duplicate this next generation experience for Android phones.

Yesterday Synaptics announced broad sampling of its new ClearForce force-sensing solutions for smartphones that will enable Android OEMs to differentiate smartphones by providing customers with new dimensions in user interfaces such as speed scrolling, zoom, gaming, and text or photo editing by applying variable force with a finger or stylus. Synaptics has been working closely with leading global OEMs and LCMs to deliver this new dimension in touch with force-enabled smartphones expected to ship in early 2016.

Variable force creates numerous opportunities to invent new user interface capabilities and increases productivity for touchscreen applications. Synaptics ClearForce Solutions deliver the following:

•Variable speed scrolling

•Picture zoom and panning

•Function preview and selection

•Continuously variable gaming control functions

•Unlock and wake up

•Right-side mouse click behavior (open contextual menus)

•Line thickness control while drawing (e.g., when writing Chinese characters and creating artwork)

•Image editing (brightness, contrast, saturation)

•Upper case and symbol selection (to bypass keyboard mode changes)

Will the Synaptic solution be as good as Apple's 3D Touch? While only time will tell, it would seem that without Android OEMs finding a way to copy Apple's Taptic Engine, it's likely to fall short of the real-experience that is found on today's iPhone 6s. Then again, coming close to an iPhone feature is good enough for Android smartphone makers.   

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend.