It was bound to happen soon. Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone maker notorious for copying Apple's style, is reported to be working on its own pressure-sensitive display technology akin to 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Following earlier rumors that Samsung was also working on its own 3D Touch-like display to be used for the Galaxy S7, Xiaomi is now the newest manufacturer said to be jumping into the 3D Touch bandwagon after Apple introduced it in its newest iPhones last month.
The latest rumor comes from Chinese leaker @Leaksfly (via G for Games), who is known for his usually reliable leaks about upcoming devices. The tipster claims Xiaomi has filed a patent for an application similar to 3D Touch, suggesting that the company may use its in-house developed technology to create a pressure-sensitive display for its future devices.
However, it is also possible that Xiaomi will team up with Synaptics, whose ClearForce display controllers will allow smartphones to have displays that can distinguish between different kinds of pressures. It is not at all hard to imagine, since Xiaomi and Synaptics worked together to bring the ClearPad S3708 controller to the recently unveiled Xiaomi Mi4c. The ClearPad S3708 actually has support for 3D Touch and Side Touch, but only the latter is enabled in the Mi4c.
It's not clear, however, whether the Mi 5 will be the first Xiaomi device to sport a pressure-sensitive display. As of the latest reports, the Mi 5 is slated for a 2016 release and will be the first handset to have a Snapdragon 820 under the hood.
Samsung was recently reported to have contacted Synaptics to bring its ClearForce controller to its upcoming devices. The South Korean smartphone maker, also known for taking plenty of pages out of Apple's playbook, is said to have filed a patent for a similar technology in 2014.
With Apple having introduced Force Touch in the Apple Watch and 3D Touch in the new iPhones, the idea of having pressure-sensitive displays seems to be quickly adopted by the rest of the smartphone industry. Just recently, Huawei also unveiled the Force Touch version of the Huawei Mate S, which actually saw an official launch before the iPhone 6s.
3D Touch, Force Touch or ClearForce — they have different names but they all basically work the same. The technology allows a device's display to sense how hard the user is pushing on the screen and serve up different options based on the amount of pressure used. For instance, a light tap on an app could open the app, while pressing deeply could open other commands, in the same way that right-clicking on a computer opens another menu of options.
