iMovie gains haptic feedback on Apple's new Force Touch trackpads

Haptic feedback is enabled in three situations: when dragging a video clip to its maximum length, snapping a title to the beginning or end of a video clip, and when snapping to alignment guides during video cropping. The changes, which were first noticed by Final Cut blogger Alex Gollner, came as part of the iMovie 10.0.7 update released earlier in March.

AppleInsider tested out the new functionality on Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Pro, and found it well executed. The sensation is completely different from the feeling of a click —  instead, it feels more like a small tap directly on the tip of the finger.

This addition suggests that Apple may be preparing a wider rollout of haptic feedback across OS X. Given its prominence in the Apple Watch and subsequent migration to the Mac, it also seems likely to reach iOS devices in the future.

We took a first look at the new Force Touch trackpad earlier this week, and found it to be a tour de force of engineering and an excellent addition to the Mac. The user experience is virtually unchanged from older trackpads, and the versatility of its haptic feedback mechanism is proving to be more useful than imagined.