OS X 10.10.3 14D98g: Mac Devs Get Force Touch APIs

Praise the deities of hardware and software. Apple’s just announced and shipping April 10 new MacBook features the completely new Force Touch trackpad. To whit, the just released OS X 10.10.3 14D98g developer seed includes APIs that work Force Touch — careful, you might like it too much.

Apple’s just updated and shipping now 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro also features Force Touch.

And, all of this Force Touch goodness originated with the last September’s Apple Watch introduction. Apple Watch arrives in nine countries — Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and the US — on April 24.

That said, OS X 10.10.3 contains new dev API (application programming interfaces) that bring Force Touch functionality to life:

Force click — Apps can have any button, control, or region on the screen respond to a press of stronger pressure. This Force click can provide a shortcut to additional functionality within the app.

Accelerators — Pressure sensitivity in the trackpad enables apps to give users greater control. For instance the fast-forward button in media playback can speed up as pressure increases.

See Also: iOS 8.3 Goes ‘Public,’ Polishes Messages

Pressure sensitivity — Drawing and other creative apps can take advantage of the pressure-sensing capabilities of the trackpad to make lines thicker or give the brush a changing style.

Drag and Drop — Apps can add the springLoaded property to their controls so they can react to a Force click gesture while in the middle of performing a drag, for instance to immediately open a new target for the drop.

For what it’s worth, third betas of iOS 8.3, Xcode 6.3 with Swift 1.2 and OS X Server 4.1 have also been seeded to devs.