Apple Shares New Ads Highlighting 3D Touch and Live Photos on iPhone 6s

[Popeye206]

Nice. I was really excited for "hey siri" but I say it and more often than not nothing happens. Unsure why; I have tried setting it up 3-4 times just in cases the setupdidn't take. On ocassion I will use it for things like weather, but I hold down the home button. Doing a google search I find is faster just typing myself. For me, google now just works so much better. :/

I use Siri all the time and have found that it just keeps getting better. I've noticed many little improvements over the past couple of months and Siri is getting much better at finding specifics, showing summaries, and voice summarizing results. I'd say if you haven't tried Siri in the last 30-60 days, you probably have not seen how much better it's gotten.

BTW.... I'm not saying SIRI is better than Google Now... I actually don't know... it's been a while since I messed with Google Now, but I will say that Apple Maps and SIRI are improving quickly in the background... in fact, Apple Maps just re-routed me for the first time last week when I was driving in Philly... it detected a back-up, suggested an alternative and told me how much time it would save us taking the alternate route. Never saw that before then...but these kind of surprises keep showing up.
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Live photos of my children is wonderful as sometime a 'still' photo doesn't catch all the magic. So for me the adds were good as they are simple without need of any explanation.

Nice avatar!

 

[Keane16]

So as a user, when exactly do I know when I should 3-D touch something to get a pop or peek? It's totally not clear. Marketing gimmick, not good design.

Things I didn't think when the iPhone was originally released:

"When exactly do I know when to pinch to zoom? It's not totally clear. Marketing gimmick, not good design".

I figured out when and where pinch to zoom works by trial and error. Just as I have with 3D Touch. It's not rocket science.

 

[cfc]

So as a user, when exactly do I know when I should 3-D touch something to get a pop or peek? It's totally not clear. Marketing gimmick, not good design.

For peek and pop it is pretty easy to know when it should be available. In theory whenever tapping something would result in showing a screen of different information, then pressing it hard will show that information temporarily. This may not be the case everywhere in iOS or in every app yet, but it is improving all the time.

However this is just for peek and pop and I agree that you are right about some other uses of 3D Touch. However plenty of other UI technologies have the same problem. For example long pressing (e.g. on the main apps screen), double tapping (e.g. on the home button for the app switcher), right clicking on Windows etc. Some input mechanisms can't be intuitive and just need to be learnt.

 

[RickInHouston]

It's going to be harder and harder to market phones when they no longer improve by the leaps and bounds of the past.

 

[Dave245]

It's going to be harder and harder to market phones when they no longer improve by the leaps and bounds of the past.

This is true, however 3D Touch and Live Photos are not leaps and bounds forward and yet they are 2 brilliant features. I don't think phones always have to be leaps and bounds forward, sometimes adding just the simple of things can make phones not only better but also feel new/different.

 

[delegagtor]

Smartphones are at the point where any changes are incremental. Apple Pay could be pretty big assuming it achieves wide adoption, but things like 3D Touch are not game changers. We see this in the apps being developed as well -- how many different apps do we need to improve on the built-in camera or manipulate images? How many yet-another-bejeweled-ripoff games?

This isn't a bad thing for consumers because it should lead to less frequent hardware purchases and longer usable life for phones just as we have seen for PCs. But Apple sure has to fight it by trying to create the perception that features like 3D Touch will somehow make you more productive.

 

[macboyfan]

It makes me sad that Apple pronounced GIF wrong.

 

[lordofthereef]

I use Siri all the time and have found that it just keeps getting better. I've noticed many little improvements over the past couple of months and Siri is getting much better at finding specifics, showing summaries, and voice summarizing results. I'd say if you haven't tried Siri in the last 30-60 days, you probably have not seen how much better it's gotten.

BTW.... I'm not saying SIRI is better than Google Now... I actually don't know... it's been a while since I messed with Google Now, but I will say that Apple Maps and SIRI are improving quickly in the background... in fact, Apple Maps just re-routed me for the first time last week when I was driving in Philly... it detected a back-up, suggested an alternative and told me how much time it would save us taking the alternate route. Never saw that before then...but these kind of surprises keep showing up.

It has definitely improved over the years. I just find that something has to work 99% of the time for me to employits use over the old way. I just tried "Hey Siri" for the sake of this response and it took three tries to get it to activate. In that time I can just fin whatever I needed without. On a two year old Moto X it works every time. I also prefer the way information is presented with Google now over Siri, but that's a minor difference, assuming both are actually working for me when I want them to. I really don't get it.

 

[jtrenda33]

It'd be nice to see them feature some apps that actually have cool implementations of 3D Touch like iMaschine 2, not just the lame peak and pop gimmicky crap.
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It makes me sad that Apple pronounced GIF wrong.

They didn't.

 

[Popeye206]

It has definitely improved over the years. I just find that something has to work 99% of the time for me to employits use over the old way. I just tried "Hey Siri" for the sake of this response and it took three tries to get it to activate. In that time I can just fin whatever I needed without. On a two year old Moto X it works every time. I also prefer the way information is presented with Google now over Siri, but that's a minor difference, assuming both are actually working for me when I want them to. I really don't get it.

Yes... the "Hey Siri" feature does need some help. It's seems to be about 80% accurate for me. But I also noticed that if you don't wait for the beep after saying "hey siri" you have to try again. If you wait for the beep to ask your question or give it a command, it seems to do much better. However, where I've noticed the most improvement is in her answers. They are getting more specific and she's responding with verbal answers more and more. Whereas 6 months ago, she would send you to a lot more web pages and let you look it up yourself.

 

[lordofthereef]

Yes... the "Hey Siri" feature does need some help. It's seems to be about 80% accurate for me. But I also noticed that if you don't wait for the beep after saying "hey siri" you have to try again. If you wait for the beep to ask your question or give it a command, it seems to do much better. However, where I've noticed the most improvement is in her answers. They are getting more specific and she's responding with verbal answers more and more. Whereas 6 months ago, she would send you to a lot more web pages and let you look it up yourself.

I'll take your word on that. I find that the question has to be rather simple for me to get a verbale response Otherwise it is essentially a google search (or whatever serach engine the service employs) with a really crappy (IMO) interface for choosing which search result you want to use more.

Conversely, the voice to text, or dictation, or whateve they call it (referring to the little mic on the keyboard you can tap and just talk) works very well for me. I often use that when sending texts and shorter emails. I realize that's not necessarily Siri, but it is part of the voice recognition software.

Anyway, I want to love siri. I give it a try every now and then, and give it a particularly heavy trial whenever I buy a new phone. It's just not withere "there yet" for me. I am sure it's only a matter of time before virtually everything we do on our phones can be reliably controller by nothing but voice input.

 

[trifid]

I have to admit I'm impressed with the live photos ad, great ad in my opinion.

3D touch no, looks nice in theory, but it doesn't work that well for me, I actually waste more time because many times when I try to do 3D touch the iPhone doesn't register my input due to input-blocking during animations. At first I thought I wasn't pressing hard enough, then I realized iOS was blocking my input. So having to 3D-touch again is more work and wastes time.

 

[Tech198]

I think we all used the same response when we all first saw the iPhone in 2007 as well.
Users will get excited over just about anything, even if it's for a few seconds.

 

[advancewarsbest]

Am I the only one who felt the ads were terrible? Ever since samsung beat Apple at ad's it seems Apple has just been making worse.

Anyways, 6+ owner here I too had to turn off live photos because it was annoying/never had any use out of it.

3D touch is only useful on the home screen when you click on an app. However i don't understand why by default rather than holding an app and having them jiggle, why if you hold an app the 3D touch menu thing appears by default instead. to delete apps you could go to settings/delete or something and then the apps jiggle or you just delete them in memory usage area instead. I think that would be more useful and there would be no need for 3D touch and everyone gets to enjoy the best use of it.

 

[cfc]

It'd be nice to see them feature some apps that actually have cool implementations of 3D Touch like iMaschine 2, not just the lame peak and pop gimmicky crap.

If you like unique uses of 3D Touch then take a look at Poison Maps, which uses it to make panning across maps much easier. It temporarily zooms out according to how hard you press the screen, as shown in this video (which has narration):

 

[mrklaw]

Is there a trick with 3D Touch on the keyboard? If I press halfway to move a cursor, but it ends up in the wrong place, I find I can't get it to kick in again straight away - I'll take my finger off, press firmly again - and nothing. It'll just end up typing a letter. It's like I have to pause for a few seconds before it'll be ready to do it again. That gets frustrating.

 

[recoil80]

Time travel is dangerous… Your phone bricks when you go back to 1970.

Best comment of the day

I like the new ads, they're funny and I wonder if they'll translate the joke in my language when they'll air the ads in my country

 

[jtrenda33]

Is there a trick with 3D Touch on the keyboard? If I press halfway to move a cursor, but it ends up in the wrong place, I find I can't get it to kick in again straight away - I'll take my finger off, press firmly again - and nothing. It'll just end up typing a letter. It's like I have to pause for a few seconds before it'll be ready to do it again. That gets frustrating.

3D Touch on the keyboard needs some refinement for sure. You have to go very slow and let up on the pressure slowly to get the cursor to end up in the right place - most of the time. Also, if you let go, you must let the cursor flash at least once before invoking 3D Touch again, which is a bit of an inconvenience, especially when the cursor often ends up in the wrong spot.

 

[952863]

Lol. The Aubrey Plaza segment was awesome. Love her!