Apple Revives The Feel Of Typing On A Blackberry With iOS 16 Keyboard Vibrations

Image via Priscilla Du Preez / Unsplash (CC0)

With all these efforts to create virtual loved ones you can’t hold and food you can’t eat, don’t you miss the days when things were more tangible?

Although you’re not getting anything close to a mechanical keyboard, Apple’s iOS 16 is bringing back the sensation of receiving a response when you type something. In an iOS first, haptic feedback in your native iPhone keyboard will be made an option via Settings.

The option enables vibrations when you tap through your virtual keyboard, allowing you to “feel confirmation” that you’ve entered something, à la a physical keyboard on a Blackberry keypad.

Keyboard vibrations aren’t by any means new in the smartphone world. A similar ‘clicking’ response once existed in classic iPhones before the tech giant weeded it out. Android smartphone keyboards also give off haptic feedback, as do various third-party iOS keyboard apps.

When iOS 16 officially launches this fall, you’ll be able to toggle the keyboard haptics feature by heading to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard feedback. The setting will be switched off by default.

While it’s just a minor add-on in the grand scheme of iOS 16, this added tactility would most definitely be welcomed, considering the second coming of mechanical keyboards on home office desks.

[via MacRumors and 9to5Mac, cover image via Priscilla Du Preez / Unsplash (CC0)]