Apple looks at method for mouse, touchpad respond in various ways depending on how hard you press them

Apple has been granted a patent (number 11556201 B2) for a “device, method, and user interface for processing intensity of touch contacts.” It involves making a mouse and a laptop touchpad respond in various ways depending on how hard you press them.

About the patent

In the patent info, Apple notes that tahe use of touch-sensitive surfaces as input devices for computers and other electronic computing devices has increased significantly in recent years. Touch-sensitive surfaces include touchpads and touch-screen displays. Such surfaces are widely used to manipulate user interface objects on a display.

In addition to the presence or absence of a contacts (or touches) on the touchpads and touch-screen displays, the intensity of contacts can be used to manipulate user interface objects on a display. However, Apple says that processing intensity of contacts can be cumbersome and inefficient. For example, processing intensity of contacts require complex instructions, which can lead to increased computational load, increased size of software applications, and increased power consumption. 

These create a significant burden on the use of intensity of contacts in electronic devices. Apple wants to overcome such limitations on its devices.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “An electronic device, in response to detecting a touch input on a touch-sensitive surface, determines an intensity of the touch input. In accordance with the intensity of the touch input on the touch-sensitive surface and one or more preselected intensity thresholds, the device determines an intensity stage of the touch input and one or more intensity-based progress values of the touch input, based on an intensity range associated with the determined intensity stage. 

“The device sends touch information to a first software application stored by the electronic device, including the one or more intensity-based progress values of the touch input and information identifying the intensity stage of the touch input, and processes the touch input based on the one or more intensity-based progress values of the touch input and the intensity stage of the touch input.”

The graphic s a perspective view of an exemplary multifunction device with a touch-sensitive surface.