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Apple Stores now have pressure-sensitive tables to promote 3D Touch

Whether you’re an Apple fan or not, you have to admire the care and attention to detail that the company puts into its high street retail stores. A case in point: The new 3D Touch-compatible display units that have recently been installed in stores in San Francisco and New York, tables which react every time you press down on the iPhones on top of them.

Specifically, it looks like the water ripples you see on the iPhone’s wallpaper also spread out across the top of the table too — a neat trick if you’re looking to convince people to spend some of their cash on a brand new Apple handset. According to an Apple Store employee who spoke to Grate App, there are indeed only two of these tables in existence at the moment.

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3D Touch is one of the major new features that differentiates the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus from last year’s models: It essentially adds a pressure-sensitive layer to the phone’s screen, so the software is able to distinguish between a light touch and a harder one. So far the feature has primarily been used to bring up sub-menus and extra shortcuts, much like a right-click on a computer would.

It may seem a little bit gimmicky but Android manufacturers are keen to get in on the act as well, and in the years to come the technology may well become a standard feature of all modern-day smartphones. No doubt Apple’s flagship stores will evolve in the meantime as well — this year the company has had to reconfigure the layout of its brick-and-mortar outlets to accommodate the new Apple Watch, another product given customized display cases of its very own.

With no official word from Apple, it seems like this is a limited arrangement designed to promote the new phones, but if you’re in the San Francisco or New York areas you might want to give it a try for yourself.

David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
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