Apple Expected to Remove 3D Touch From All 2019 iPhones in Favor of Haptic Touch

[rk-apple]

I miss 3D Touch on my iPhone XR. I loved it on my iPhone 8. Now my wife has that phone and never uses 3D Touch. Why? Apple needs to do a better job of letting users know when 3D Touch is available, and, for that matter, when Haptic Touch is available as well!

 

[avanpelt]

Sad. It was really convenient to reply to texts/e-mails from lock screen with 3D Touch.

That can still be done on the iPhone XR. Just tap and hold on the notification to bring up quick reply. Coming from an iPhone 7, I found Haptic Touch to be a lot more intuitive than Force Touch. I suspect that most people grasp the concept of “touch and hold” more easily than “touch and keep pressing down”.

 

[frou]

Even though I've made use of it for a long time, it still does not feel pleasant to mash down on a hard glass surface.

Overall, not sure that the few neat tricks it brings really outweigh its awkwardness and lack of discoverability.

 

[audiophilosophy]

This is good news. Now they won't be constricted with advancing their screen tech by having to make sure it still is capable of 3D touch.

 

[EugW]

I kept it active for a couple of months, trying to learn to like it, but I never did learn to like it. IMO it's more annoying than anything. I turned it off on my 7 Plus and haven't used it since. I'm still on my 7 Plus BTW.

Overall, I'm very happy to see it gone, so developers (including Apple) won't be wasting time on it anymore.

 

[Seanm87]

Sad. It was really convenient to reply to texts/e-mails from lock screen with 3D Touch.

You can do that with haptic touch
[doublepost=1558986966][/doublepost]If they’re getting rid of it I’m sure there’s a good reason why.

 

[SoSickSadNslOw]

I love the occasional peek and pop in messages when I don’t want them to show as “read”.

 

[roncron]

I remember Apple really hyping 3D Touch as "revolutionary." It was going to add a whole new dimension to the way we interacted with our iPhones.

I don't think it's a bad feature, and I use it, but it turned out to have less potential (or maybe less realized potential) than promised. Not all of the 100+ apps on my phone offer 3D Touch features, and most that do merely allow me to do some common tasks by 3D-touching the icon, which essentially saves me a single step. Anything that saves the user a step is welcome, but it's not revolutionary.

I haven't tried using haptic touch on an iPhone that doesn't have 3D Touch and wonder if it will feel like a step backward. Most reviews of the XR don't seem to miss 3D Touch, so maybe it'll be fine.

But it really won't affect me for a few years. I just dropped $1100 on an XS Max last fall and don't plan to (can't afford to) get a new iPhone until probably 2021.

 

[larrylaffer]

3D Touch is the Shake-to-Undo of touchscreen features.

 

[Christopher_X]

I love using 3D Touch on the keyboard and to change the speed of text deletion. I can’t lose this feature has Haptic Touch is too slow. For me, this would be a reason itself to never leave my iPhone X Max. Other have noted but 3D Touch on new messages or for peek (send no read receipt) and pop after I’m done peeking.

Please let this but a fake rumor.

 

[Falhófnir]

But we already knew that... A shame, one of the more interesting features from recent(ish) iPhones. If it's to facilitate under screen TouchID though as was rumoured a while back, worth it IMO.

 

[frou]

3D Touch is the Shake-to-Undo of touchscreen features.

Something you use once every 3 months but are really glad it still works?

 

[Janichsan]

Haptic Touch does not support Quick Actions app menus or Peek and Pop for previewing content.

…yet. If Apple really would remove 3D Touch, I would be surprised if they wouldn't make the options available through it in another way.

 

[Rorosbutt]

Does this mean you won’t be able to force touch on keypad and use it as a trackpad? I love using it to move the cursor, highlight, etc

 

[Glockworkorange]

You'll have to pry 3D Touch from my cold, dead hands.

 

[xotigu]

If this is true, then I hope Apple will be able to implement all the 3D touch's capability into haptic touch. There are still features that aren't supported by haptic touch (like the peeking of links and pictures).
If not, then Xs Max will be my next upgrade.

 

[Daku93]

In all honesty, the biggest feature I enjoyed about the 3D Touch was pressing firmly on the keyboard to get a mouse-like cursor. That is still present on the XR by long-pressing the space bar.

You can do more with 3D touch, though. You can force-press again while moving the cursor to start selecting text, etc. This is something I use A LOT!

 

[Glockworkorange]

This is a feature mostly everyone on here calls a gimmick but I love using. I hope they keep a variation of it on the new iPhone.

I love it. I passed on the 6S and thought it was gimmicky, until I started using it on a 7 Plus.

It's a great feature when you start using it.
[doublepost=1558987830][/doublepost]

It’s difficult to advertise “visually” what force touch is. So I’d understand why.

I think they don't call it "ForceTouch" on the phone because it sounds....rapey.

 

[Falhófnir]

Does this mean you won’t be able to force touch on keypad and use it as a trackpad? I love using it to move the cursor, highlight, etc

No I'm pretty sure you can do that on a XR it's just a long press rather than a force press...

 

[BootsWalking]

And Face ID is right behind it - another "solution" in search of a problem.

 

[alpi123]

Maybe the most underrated feature.
I wish more people knew about it so they didn't have to remove it.

I hope maybe in the future they invent a better version of it?

 

[G3Blue]

Probably because nobody is using it. it's to unintuitive.

Speak for yourself.

 

[Cousin Dirk]

Barely a day goes by where I don’t use 3D Touch in some fashion.

If the feature can’t be fully and seamlessly implemented in software it will give me pause to upgrade.

 

[chucker23n1]

Mixed feelings.

On the one hand, they never truly went all-in. No iPad ever had it. Several iPhones never had it. Given how otherwise similar using iOS is, that put a significant dent into making 3D Touch easy to explain. "OK, if you press like this, you get additional options… unless your device doesn't support it, in which case you have to do an entirely different dance."

They also never quite figured out the UI. Why is deep-pressing an icon a different thing than long-pressing, but only sometimes? In Control Center, with 3D Touch, I deep-press to get more options, but on devices without it, I long-press (for no reason whatsoever, I can't long-press if the device does have 3D Touch). But on the Home screen, the same doesn't apply; 3D Touch shows the widget and various shortcuts, whereas a long touch enables wiggle mode. Similarly, in Tweetbot, long-pressing shows a share sheet (why?) but deep-pressing shows peek/pop.

They've had three major releases since the debut to unify this.

On the other hand, peek and pop is actually really nice UI to have a glance at stuff. 3D Touch as a shortcut to faster long-presses also works well. Deep-pressing the keyboard feels more right than tapping and holding the space bar.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

I never use it, to be honest. I often forget that my phone even has it.