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A pressure-sensitive display will open up another layer of interaction beyond the usual staple of touches and swipes.

 

Your next Android phone’s screen might be more like a giant pressure-sensitive button.

That’s because Synaptics is pushing a new capability for smartphones called ClearForce. Much like Apple’s 3D Touch, you’ll be able to “press” on the screen and get a popup menu or another type of contextual action.

This would allow for different types of interaction with your screen beyond the standard touch, press-and-hold, or pinch-to-zoom. Synaptics is a big player with touch sensors. By backing new tech like this, there’s a good chance you’ll start to see it in a bunch of new phones over the coming year.

However, Synaptics is at work on more than just menus. Synaptics says the new sensor technology will allow for variable speed scrolling, new ways to pan and zoom over pictures, and additional contextual menus depending on how much pressure is applied to the screen.

This isn’t the first time a pressure-sensitive screen has popped up in the world of Android. The Huawei Mate S screen can be hard pressed to zoom in to particular parts of an image or even act as a scale.