One of the most transformative things to happen in mobile hardware in the past five years happened last month… but without due recognition. I’m referring to Apple’s 3D Touch, which will be featured in the new line of iPhones (6s and 6+s). This is the subject of our most recent Analyst Brief: Insights in Under 5 minutes (video below).

Why will it be so transformative? A lot of people have likened 3D Touch to a sort of right click for mobile,  and that’s true to some degree but I think it goes even further. This could be a fundamental transformation of interaction and app design for mobile commerce. And it will change the way we use our devices.

One thing that isn’t being discussed is that 3D Touch could really be the solution we’ve been waiting for to the deep-linking dilemma.  It has all the ingredients to be a better solution to deep linking because it peeks inside other apps. That makes it a lighter and more elegant solution than typical deep linking.

This is important for local because the app fragmentation issue that deep linking addresses looms large within local apps. That’s partly because local searches are more multi-dimensional: Planning a night out typically involves messaging, Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare and Uber. That’s a lot of finger tapping.

Not only that but planning things locally often involves more immediacy and high intent. So that common problem of bouncing around awkwardly to several apps is all the more painful in a local context because of those higher levels of immediacy and eagerness. So it’s a real pain point.

3D touch will provide the toolbox to address that pain point with more streamlined commerce in local apps. We’re in early stages where only some apps have it, and some iPhones are compatible with it. But as the compatibility cycles in over time, we’ll see lots of local app developers build in this functionality.

See the video below where we go deeper and give lots of examples. And of course this will a topic we’ll address at BIA/Kelsey NEXT.