Nokia 'perfects' touchscreen feedback

As anyone who has tried to type out an email on an iPhone can tell you, trying to use a software keyboard on a touchscreen device isn't quite as easy as some would have you think. That's why, if you ask just about anyone in the know what they'd like to see in the next version of the iPhone, some form of touch-feedback will be high up on the list. With other touchscreen devices on the market already sporting haptics feedback (the LG Prada phone being the most visible example), it almost seems like an inevitability that Apple will integrate similar technology into the iPhone at some point. The only question that remains: does Apple have the technology to pull it off?

While that much remains unclear, it appears that someone else does: Nokia. The Red Ferret Journal traveled to Nokia's research labs in order to receive a sneak peek of the company's upcoming feedback tech and walked away quite impressed, even going so far as to state that Nokia has "perfect[ed] the clicky tactile touchscreen." "Don't be fooled by simple vibrational imitations folks, this is the real McCoy," Red Ferret reports. "[Y]ou press a key on the screen, and it clicks under your finger with exactly the same sort of fingertip feedback as if you'd pressed a conventional keyboard key." Apparently, the technology--which Nokia is calling "Haptikos," meaning "to touch" in the company's native Finnish--will ship with the company's upcoming S60-based iPhone clone. You hear that, Apple?

For more on Haptikos:
- see this article from the Red Ferret Journal