Apple Patents Magic Mouse with Integrated Force Touch

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has today granted Apple a new patent for a future Magic Mouse with integrated Force Touch sensors, something that will bring the same new experience that the company brought to its latest MacBook’s trackpad. According to Patently Apple, Apple has engineered the future Magic Mouse to deliver a responsive, uniform click no matter where you press the surface, while the Force Touch sensors underneath detect how much pressure you’re applying.

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Apple’s Magic Mouse with Force Touch will let you use a “Force click” to perform functions like quickly looking up the definition of a word or previewing a file just by clicking and continuing to press on the Magic Mouse surface. The source explains that you will be able to experience this through haptic feedback, that further adds the sense of touch to what you see on the screen. These advanced capabilities work in addition to all the existing Multi-Touch gestures available to Mac users.

Apple’s newly granted patent generally relates to systems and methods for providing force sensing input devices. A force sensing input device (such as a force sensing mouse) may include at least one force sensor and at least one top portion movably connected (such as pivotally and/or otherwise rotatably connected via one or more pivot, one or more ball joint elements, and/or other such pivotal connection elements) to at least one bottom portion. When a force is applied to the top portion, the top portion may exert pressure on the force sensor. The force sensor may obtain force data based upon the pressure.

The patent was originally filed for by Apple in Q1 2013.

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