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3D touch is time-based after all

dark_knight177

dark_knight177

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 22, 2010
220
323
To all the people who are saying that 3d touch is not time-based are completely wrong. Try force touching an icon then immediately releasing your finger. Sure enough, it doesn't register "force touch" unless you keep your finger for a fraction of a second on the icon, meaning the implementation is indeed time-based.

Which really brings the question why did apple add 3D touch after all, when exactly the same thing could have been implemented in software by timing without adding complicated force touch sensors.
3D touch seems to be the most hyped and useless gimmick I have ever used.
 
Force (or pressure) is not the same as duration. A UI can have some overlap so they sometimes produce the same results, but consider other examples. A music app can produce louder volume the harder you press. A drawing app can produce thicker or darker lines the harder you press.
 
Try pressing really hard on the an icon right away. Yea, there is a delay before the 3D Touch options come up but that's because the delay is for when you intend to open the app instead of using 3D Touch

Try this now. Try lightly touching an app and then immediately pressing hard. 3D Touch triggers.
Try lightly touching an app and then gradually increase pressure. 3D Touch triggers again.

So yea. What's this about "time-based" again? I do agree though that 3D Touch features could be added to non-3D Touch enabled devices by implementing a time mechanic.

EDIT: Actually I take that back. Without the additional sensors the phone won't be able to tell the difference between a long press for 3D Touch vs a long press to delete or move an app
 
Vicrooloo said:
Try this now. Try lightly touching an app and then immediately pressing hard. 3D Touch triggers.
Click to expand...

Try this right now: Try pushing on the screen with your finger as hard as you can then immediately release it. Almost like punching the screen with your finger and bouncing it off the screen. No matter how hard you press it, it won't register, unless you keep you finger for a certain amount of time. It was not done for opening other apps.

The same thing for hard press. When you you hard press to pop, it's the second click any way you slice it. You can't get it to pop unless you peek it first, meaning it could just as well be implemented with the same type of pressure or just one type of time-based click.
 
Think about music. Notes have loudness and duration. That's why keyboards are velocity sensitive
dark_knight177 said:
Try this right now: Try pushing on the screen with your finger as hard as you can then immediately release it.
Click to expand...
OK. So what? You described two use cases where a press and hold could substitute for a force touch. Big deal.

Clearly you are not an Apple fan: https://forums.macrumors.com/search/1333385/
 
Last edited:
chabig said:
OK. So what? You described two use cases where a press and hold could substitute for a force touch. Big deal.
Click to expand...
And you described ONLY two use cases where force touch could be utilized, but then again iPhones don't have styluses and nobody sketches inside Notes app with their finger, especially with force touch. Seriously? What a nightmare to draw on a tiny screen with a finger and not just draw, but "force draw"?

For the second use case, do you really use 3d touch to make your music louder? That's a useless use case as well.

And lastly, clearly you are a BIG Apple fan!
 
dark_knight177 said:
To all the people who are saying that 3d touch is not time-based are completely wrong. Try force touching an icon then immediately releasing your finger. Sure enough, it doesn't register "force touch" unless you keep your finger for a fraction of a second on the icon, meaning the implementation is indeed time-based.

Which really brings the question why did apple add 3D touch after all, when exactly the same thing could have been implemented in software by timing without adding complicated force touch sensors.
3D touch seems to be the most hyped and useless gimmick I have ever used.
Click to expand...

You make it all sounds so simple. It's not.

The force touch time limit you are seeing is a "filter" function meant to detect and cancel out inadvertent force touches. It's probably no more than half a second long. Just enough to be a good filter without slowing down a force-touch interaction.

If the phone couldn't detect force and had to do it all with timers, the timer would need to be much longer than that. Probably two seconds minimum in order to avoid false-detects from slow-moving fingers. Two seconds happens to be the length of the timer to initiate the wiggle mode to move app icons around. Do you want to wait that long to initiate the equivalent of a force-touch? I sure don't. Force touch is meant to save time. That wouldn't.
 
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