Here's The Deal With The Digital Touch Heartbeat

If you've been keeping up with the new iOS 10 platform that's been rolling out to iPhones this past week, you might have gotten to play with a brand new feature called Digital Touch. I've been playing with it ever since the beta release, and can't help but ask — is the Digital Touch heart my actual heartbeat ? It sure looks like your heartbeat, after all.

For those of us that never owned an Apple Watch, this feature has been keeping people on their toes since its release. Many users have wondered if the feature actually takes a measurement of your heartbeat, or if it is just a generic in-app sample randomly assigned by an algorithm. Turns out, it is your heartbeat when you're using the Apple Watch. Here's the sitch for iPhone: if you're wearing an Apple Watch or other heartbeat-measuring device synced to it, then it will pull from the measurements of that heartbeat in Digital Touch. Otherwise, it will pull from a standard default.

So basically as long as you have a sensor, your friends can know just how sweaty and gross you feel after a run, or how excited you got when your Beyoncé tickets came in the mail. Your heartbeat will show the way! You can also be very cute when talking to a loved one or a significant other by sending them a little snippet of your heart. Some have even done this with newborn babies. This feature is all about how you use it. It can be your go-to, or it can just be another cool thing that your phone does.

To use this feature on your iPhone all you have to do is open up your messages and pick a person you want to talk to in the most personal way possible. For the purposes of this demo — I picked myself.

First, Open iMessage

As you can see, we have a whole menagerie of options here that we didn't have before.

Press The "Digital Touch" Button

You will need to click on the icon with a heart and two fingers to access the Digital Touch feature. Because Apple employees geniuses that understand user-friendly technology, they included a little guide on the side of the screen that lets you know exactly how to use this feature in real time.

Press Down Two Fingers And Hold

You will need to press your two fingers on the black pad, and hold them there for a second. The gesture will capture your personal heartbeat and send it on its way! The finished product will look like the above photo. Your friends and family will be able to inspect your heartbeat and send you one back. You can also use the feature to send pulses and drawings that replay for the reader. This is going to change the texting game like nothing else!

Images: Dasha Fayvinova; Oleh_Slobodeniuk/E+/Getty Images