Reportedly, Apple and Immersion held talks regarding a possible deal a couple of times last week.
Matters should be helped along by the appointment of former Apple exec Clent Richardson as the new president and CEO of Immersion. Richardson spent five years at Apple, where he was VP of worldwide developer relations & worldwide solutions marketing as well as the senior manager of evangelism.
Immersion's VibeTonz technology extends tactile feedback way beyond the capabilities of your typical vibrating cell phone. With it, an application developer can independently control both vibration strength and frequency for what Immersion calls high-fidelity touch sensations.
So, with VibeTonz, mobile games can deliver orchestrated touch feedback to enhance the gameplay experience, for example.
It can also be used to provide tactile cues for touch-screen interfaces...