On Thursday, former Apple executive Clent Richardson became Immersion’s new CEO, and now, rumors abound that the company’s haptic technology will become a fixture of the next iPhone. Many smartphone enthusiasts are speculating the tech will primarily address the woes of typing on a virtual keyboard — but you and I know the iPhone is capable of so much more.
If you’re fairly new to the gaming news scene, you may well ask who Immersion is, and why we’re devoting your valuable time to discussing their rumors. Let’s put it this way — if you’ve ever held a force-feedback steering wheel or joystick, you’ve felt Immersion. And if the massive sums of money they successfully pulled out of Sony and Microsoft in years past are any indication, the force-feedback in modern gaming controllers is their technology as well. Aside from notable offerings by Nintendo and Novint, Immersion pretty much owns ‘rumble’ as we know it in the gaming sphere.
Considering that Immersion has recently moved into the field of touchscreen haptics with their VibeTonz system, the rumor is very compelling; but I imagine with so much experience in bringing rumble to video games (and to Apple OS X in particular) they wouldn’t limit themselves to mere keyboard feedback. Immersion is in an optimal position to ensure the next generation of portable gaming is that much more, well, immersive… and thinking about the games possible at the point where accelerometers, multitouch and rumble converge, the imagination runs wild.
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