Watch Microsoft’s cancelled take on 3D Touch in ‘leaked’ video

A new video has emerged, purportedly showing some fancy “3D Hover Touch” functionality on Microsoft’s cancelled McLaren smartphone.

The handset, which was supposed to be released in Q4 2014, was cancelled earlier that year for unknown reasons.

The cancellation meant that Microsoft was left without a high-end smartphone for almost two years, until the Lumia 950 and 950XL were released late last year.

The phone was widely tipped to be packing some innovative display technology, allowing users to hover their fingers over the screen for certain features.

Now, a video has emerged out of China, claiming to show this function on a prototype device.

The video shows that by hovering your finger over a Live Tile, you get quick access to features.

The sole example sees the user hover over the Internet Explorer tile, the phone then showing shortcuts to favourite websites.

It’s unclear how authentic this footage is, but we do know that a McLaren prototype was sold on a Chinese auction website back in 2014.

At the time, the seller listed the phone as having 2GBs of RAM, an unspecified quad-core processor and a full HD display.

Apple took a rather different route when it implemented 3D Touch, making use of a hard press instead of a hovering finger.