'F1' Haptic Movie Trailer Uses iPhone Vibrations to Mimic Racing Action

Car and Driver

a day ago

The latest trailer for F1: The Movie uses an iPhone's vibrate feature to bring physicality to the viewing experience.
Any iPhone with iOS 18.4 or newer can feel, as well as view, the trailer.
F1: The Movie stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as Formula 1 drivers and includes Lewis Hamilton among the producers.
Brad Pitt, oldest F1 driver ever, gets strapped into the car. My phone buzzes like I'm a PR person in crisis management whose client just publicly announced they hate puppies.
The cars take the track, spitting fire. Everything vibrates, with additional pulsations at each pop of flame.
Pitt slides into the pit box (Pitt box?). The phone judders like a panic stop with ABS.
Disappointingly, nothing vibrates during the laundromat scene, clear proof that nobody in Hollywood knows how out of balance the dryers are in a place where burned-out bachelor F1 racers do their once-a-year duvet cover cleanup.
Car hits wall. Buzz. Car runs down the straight. Buzz. In-car shots. Buzz. My hand starts to go numb.
We'll give Apple credit for the imaginative approach to its latest trailer for F1: The Movie. It's long been a challenge in any motorsports-themed entertainment to translate the violence and thrill of high-speed track action, and at least this haptic-feedback experiment is making an effort. However, you'll need an iPhone with iOS 18.4 or newer to actually experience the haptic trailer.
The trailer uses the same motors that make your phone vibrate for a text message or incoming phone call but matches them up with key action points in the video to add more drama to the revving engines and splintering carbon-fiber crashes. It makes race cars feel more like a "Your table is ready" restaurant pager at a Panera Bread than a 200-mph Formula 1 car, but it was mildly entertaining. It would probably really delight a cat or a baby, but we didn't have one handy during our test-watch.
F1: The Movie stars Brad Pitt as retired driver Sonny Hayes, who returns to the cockpit as a mentor to rookie Joshua "Noah" Pearce (Damson Idris). F1 comes to theaters in the U.S. on June 27. Most of the Formula 1 paddock has already seen the film and seems in agreement that the driving shots are great, and the rest is Hollywood. Buzz.
Elana Scherr
Senior Editor, Features
Like a sleeper agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn't know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to be a vet-astronaut-artist, and came closest to that last one by attending UCLA art school. She painted images of cars, but did not own one. Elana reluctantly got a driver's license at age 21 and discovered that she not only loved cars and wanted to drive them, but that other people loved cars and wanted to read about them, which meant somebody had to write about them. Since receiving activation codes, Elana has written for numerous car magazines and websites, covering classics, car culture, technology, motorsports, and new-car reviews. In 2020, she received a Best Feature award from the Motor Press Guild for the C/D story "A Drive through Classic Americana in a Polestar 2." In 2023, her Car and Driver feature story "In Washington, D.C.'s Secret Carpool Cabal, It's a Daily Slug Fest" was awarded 1st place in the 16th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club.