Android N will support pressure-sensitive touchscreens

3D Touch on the iPhone 6S is a great feature – it responds to how hard you press the touchscreen, so you can hold your finger on an icon to bring up a sub-menu, and it lets you carry out all kinds of functions without actually opening the app. And now the feature is coming to Android.

Well, in all but name. Google has confirmed that Android N – set to touch down in the autumn – will have “support for pressure-sensitive screens”.

This will let developers “define shortcuts which users can expose in the launcher to help them perform actions quicker”. Which sounds exactly the same as 3D Touch.

Huawei has already jumped on the pressure-sensitive screen bandwagon with its Mate S smartphone.

But having the feature built into the operating system will make things a lot easier for manufacturers, as they won’t have to come up with their own way of doing it. Which will make it much more widespread and uniform, which is good for us punters.

Now, what to call it? Touchy hard soft menu option? Shortcut launcher a-go-go? 3D Touch?