The Love Haptic

Haptics is the technology of impressions. It's a technology that lets you know that you're tapping and poking on your smartphone. Jesus says that love sort of does the same thing.

Anyone who used a typewriter before switching to a personal computer may remember that the sound and feel of the computer keyboard at first seemed strange. Pushing a computer key gives neither the satisfying clack nor the same physical sensation of tapping a typewriter key. Still, even on a computer, there's a slight sound, and you can feel the keys move beneath your fingers.

But what about on your smartphone? Its "keyboard" is essentially a smooth sheet of glass. By themselves, the keys there — if we can even call them "keys" — give our fingers no tactile response at all.

Phone designers know this, and realize that most users want some sensation when they touch a screen button — something to tell them that they actually did something. So the designers added a feature called "haptic feedback."

If you tap a button now, your phone vibrates slightly, assuring you that you have, in fact, activated whatever that key does. That tiny vibration is haptics at work. Without it,...