I guess it’s hard to get attention for your movie these days, with the competition in both cinemas and on streaming channels hotter than ever. So what did Apple do to help promote F1: The Movie? They made a movie trailer that buzzes in your hands.

That’s right, Apple’s “haptic trailer” has the movie world abuzz, it seems. But honestly, I don’t really get what the excitement is about.

Apple Merged Phone Haptics With a Movie Trailer

If you watch the trailer on a compatible iPhone (I used my 14 Pro) then you’ll feel the haptic motor inside vibrating the phone to match what’s happening on-screen. So as we see the race from a driver’s perspective, and hear that sweet howl of the engine as it reaches peak RPM, the phone gives you a feeling in your hand of what it might feel like to sit in that race car.

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It is undeniably cool and makes the trailer very immersive. Clearly, lots of time went into it, and from the perspective of simply marketing the film, clearly it was a good idea, because here we are all talking about it–but where exactly is Apple going with this?

This Is Nothing New

First, the idea of having haptic feedback to go along with a video is nothing new. So-called “4D” cinemas have had seats that rumble with certain events on-screen for decades. Likewise, if you’ve played any video games since the advent of rumble in controllers, then you know that it’s not uncommon for cutscene events (whether pre-recorded or rendered live) to have haptics that go along with the visuals.

So not only is the haptic trailer nothing new conceptually, it’s something millions of people have already experienced before. That makes the hoo-hah around this party trick a little strange if you ask me, but people are hyped for it anyway.

Would You Want to Watch a Whole Movie Like This?

What exactly is the end-game here though? When the movie eventually comes to Apple TV+, will you have the option to watch the whole thing on your iPhone with these haptics? A trailer is meant to represent what the movie experience will be like. So, if the full movie version on iPhone isn’t haptic, that feels a little misleading.

If it’s a tech demo, what’s it demoing exactly? Maybe if you have an iPhone, you can hold it in your hands while you watch the movie on an Apple TV and get those haptics. Maybe you can connect a controller, like a DualSense to your Mac or iPad, and feel the vibrations that way. Of course, I’m more than half-joking here because I think we probably won’t see anything like that.

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For a moment, I thought maybe it could allude to some sort of Apple Vision Pro implementation, but then I remembered that unlike the PlayStation VR 2, there are no haptic motors in the Vision Pro—too bad!

So I’m not sure whether this is meant to be a first glimpse of a new feature, or just a once-off party trick that will never be repeated. Alternatively, maybe Apple will roll out the haptics for some of its future trailers, but otherwise do nothing with the tech.

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But how does it make you feel?

It’s Great Marketing, but Silly Technology

I enjoyed the haptic trailer, and maybe it doesn’t have to be anything more than an entertaining curiosity to get people interested in a movie that might otherwise have flown under their radar, but I wish there was more to this. If Apple’s going to start dabbling in ways of making movies more immersive, I hope they do more than (admittedly advanced) rumble effects.

What about bringing back 3D movies for your future headsets, Apple? There are persistent rumors that we’ll see a more mainstream version of the Vision Pro one day, and maybe that could have rumble motors in it, along with the spatial audio we’re all already enjoying.

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So, I’m the last person who would normally have any complaints about a cool demo even remotely related to movies, but I’d also like it if there was some sort of long-term plan. If Apple is actually teasing something more here, I’m positively dying to know what.