iPhone 7: Apple testing pink iPhones that will know how hard you’re tapping them

‘Force Touch’ technology has already been integrated into MacBook Pro and Apple Watch

The iPhone 5C, which came in five different colours (Getty Images)

The next version of the iPhone will be able to tell how hard it has been pressed, using technology that has already been integrated into other Apple products.

The Force Touch technology — which was first used in the Apple Watch and has now been rolled out to the new Macbook’s trackpad — allows people to use hard presses to start different processes. In the laptop, for instance, pressing harder works like a right click and allows users to open addresses in maps.

The company plans to roll out that technology to its iPhones, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The report is in keeping with Apple’s strategy of unveiling new technologies in certain products and then rolling it out to the rest of its line, as happened with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

The report also suggests that the new phones will come in the same sizes that they do now — a normal, 4.7-inch version and the bigger 5.5-inch Plus.

The company is also trying out new colours, and is rumoured to be experimenting with a pink iPhone. It wouldn’t be the first in the colour — the iPhone 5c had pink among its range of bright colours — and though Apple rarely introduces new colours to its line-up, it brought a new gold colour into the range recently that has since been rolled out to much of its products.

Apple usually releases its new phones in Autumn, with the most recent one being announced in September.