Force Touch on iPhone 6s to Make iPhone Interactions Faster With Focus on 'Shortcuts'

[Keirasplace]

Force touch doesnt seem different than a long press.

Good grief, it is. The difference is TIME vs FORCE. Man! Long touch is slow as hell as a means of interaction, that's a big difference.

 

[mgmusicman94]

This is yet another one of those cute apple marketing terms I'm going to have to hear over and over and over and over again.

Sure its a cute marketing term but its great technology. Just like Retina display is just a fancy name, but it has made a huge difference.

 

[Rogifan]

With respect to some of your ideas this all can be implemented without force touch in a much cleaner and intuitive way.
I hope Jony Ive won't read this or it will turn iOS into a total mess.

I use force touch on the Watch and love it. What exactly is your 'cleaner and more intuitive way'?

 

[Keirasplace]

This is yet another one of those cute apple marketing terms I'm going to have to hear over and over and over and over again.

Yes, like Touch ID... All marketing, no hardware or engineering involved AT ALL (sic).

 

[djcerla]

It takes fantasy, and fervent hate, to spin negatively this piece of news. But MR forum members have enough fantasy and fervent hate.

 

[rcalderoni]

Force touch to launch into the app switcher view would be cool and a nice step up from double clicking the home button...

 

[dewski]

i want the force touch to replace the home button so we can get an edge to edge screen. make the phone a half inch shorter

 

[mgmusicman94]

I've got one of the newest MacBook pros. I had no idea it had it and it certainly hasn't affected the way I use it.

That's when you know its a good upgrade. Adding functionality without messing with old functionality. The touchpad on the new MacBooks doesn't actually have a clicking button, a vibrator buzzes quickly when a certain amount of force is applied. If you turn off the computer and try clicking it, it won't click.

 

[Rogifan]

It takes fantasy, and fervent hate, to spin negatively this piece of news. But MR forum members have enough fantasy and fervent hate.

One minute iOS sucks because it's dumb downed and crippled the next minute it sucks because it's becoming to complicated. Of course these are some of the same ones who claim the Watch UI is confusing. It took me less than 5 minutes to figure out how to use my Watch.

 

[LordQ]

Will Force Touch prevent my best friend from banging my ex girlfriend? ¬¬

In all seriousness, this seems like and appealing upgrade coming from a 4S.

 

[naeS1Sean]

So so close....yet....so far!

 

[colonel179]

I really wish Apple would dare to do a completely new design of their both OS. iOS 7 was only a new coat of paint, as well as Yosemite. They should do something different that takes advantage of hardware features and implements them better. There are so many things missing from iOS and a lot from OS X that they should consider a new look, design and UI.

 

[The Economist]

The long press has always been nice when developers integrate it. But they don't always. First of all long-pressing a home icon currently is how you start moving them. So this would give an extra capability. But second of all—especially dealing with more complex interfaces and content—Force Touch gives you less of a margin of error for activating it. Sometimes the finger lingers on the screen. This UX interaction is more deliberate and would have a proper API. I'm not certain if there is an API for long-press or if developers roll their own code for that. An example is Tweetbot long-presses on the top back nav item quickly goes all the way back to your timeline if you've been clicking deeper into content. Tweetbot is also a good example of an app that has lots of custom design and interactions so they probably made it themselves.

Furthermore this could potentially open the doors for future iPhone models to remove the home button. It's going to happen eventually as devices are always simplified and reduced where possible to save space.

Thanks, it makes sense to me now. Although, without a home button what would happen to the fingerprint sensor? I remember reading something about integrating it to the screen.

 

[Corrode]

As far as various potential home screen actions, I could see:

FT on Settings to quickly change a customizable set of things
FT on Calendar to quickly see your next meeting information
FT on Notes to quickly jot something down
FT on Camera to instantly take a picture or start recording a video
FT on Maps to start directions home
FT on Music to start your favorite playlist or station
FT on Reminders to quickly make a new reminder to your default list

I appreciate the thought you put into the capabilities of FT instead of claiming it's just another gimmick. If only we all put so much thought into our forum replies...the internet would be a better place.

 

[tkukoc]

Force touch doesnt seem different than a long press.

Agreed, people are on the "oh my gosh this is amazing because it's Apple" thing right now when ultimately Apple is the one that hinders the user experience. Force Touch just doesn't work properly because Apple doesn't allow you the user to customize the experience. If I want to add something to a menu on force touch for say Email, chances are Apple has that locked down and you won't be able to customize it or it will be extremely limited.

 

[nouveau-apple]

So basically instead of holding down on it, we'll have to tap the screen harder?

 

[mgmusicman94]

So basically instead of holding down on it, we'll have to tap the screen harder?

Force touch would be an additional way to select things or perform actions, it wouldn't replace or change how things are currently done except for adding quicker ways to accomplish tasks.

 

[nouveau-apple]

Force touch would be an additional way to select things or perform actions, it wouldn't replace or change how things are currently done except for adding quicker ways to accomplish tasks.

Hopefully we can disable it.

 

[unattributed]

On the Apple Watch, Force Touch can determine various levels of pressure. For instance, try slowly pushing down on the watch face. You can move it in and out based on how hard you press. I hope this capability is robust enough that Apple could unveil an API for it so that drawing apps can take advantage of the pressure sensitivity.

I hope that we are able to Force Touch things we can’t usually tap. The article mentions home screen icons, which is a neat idea. But imagine being able to Force Touch various status bar icons to quickly perform various actions—although admittedly the tap target sizes for those icons are really small so that may never happen. We could also FT notifications on our home screen to bring up a menu to do various things (more options than we have now). Or Force Touch on the clock on the home screen to see our calendar or next meeting.

As far as various potential home screen actions, I could see:

FT on Settings to quickly change a customizable set of things
FT on Calendar to quickly see your next meeting information
FT on Notes to quickly jot something down
FT on Camera to instantly take a picture or start recording a video
FT on Maps to start directions home
FT on Music to start your favorite playlist or station
FT on Reminders to quickly make a new reminder to your default list

I could go on, but I hope that they give us the ability to customize actions that can be taken when we FT different icons and third party apps as well.

As for things we could do inside of apps, it would be nice if we could FT any image anywhere in iOS and get options to share or have it default share or save it to our preferred service. Or FT a website URL or URL bar to save it to a reading list or to Pocket. I could also see FT on emails being useful if Apple would build in additional capabilities to use our inbox like a to-do list. FT could enable that without over-complicating the interface. It would be neat to FT a phone number to quickly set a reminder to call that number, add it to contacts, etc. The same could be done for other actionable information.

Another idea is that you could FT the keyboard to switch between modes for numeric, or third party keyboards, or emoji, etc. Or you could FT on Control Center to view another layer of controls. Or FT on a control center toggle to quickly switch it out with a list of other toggles that fly out in a circle around your finger. Or FT on any text input field and instantly start speaking to use dictation. Oh man there are so many fun things you could do!

I also hope that we get some kind of Taptic Engine feedback when typing—as long as it feels right—but I don’t know if that would drain the battery or wear out the parts faster.

You should submit all of your ideas to Apple! Being serious here, some really neat stuff you wrote! Thx, enjoyed it! unattributed.

 

[makingdots]

it is the begining for the big one iPhone 7. They need force touch for them to remove the home button...

So this force touch is forward thinking for the iP7. Like they did with ios7 and iphone 6, swipe left/right and with iphone 6 curved screen to be more fluent experience

So where you gonna place fingerprint scanning then? at the back? no way

 

[makingdots]

Nice. But I'm still not getting the 6s... all this & more will be in the 7. Upgrade every two years.

Same with 7s, all 7 and more

 

[verniesgarden]

Force touch doesnt seem different than a long press.

but think of it as you can have a force touch and a long touch do two completely different things.

 

[Mildredop]

That's when you know its a good upgrade. Adding functionality without messing with old functionality. The touchpad on the new MacBooks doesn't actually have a clicking button, a vibrator buzzes quickly when a certain amount of force is applied. If you turn off the computer and try clicking it, it won't click.

How is that adding functionality?

 

[pittpanthersfan]

They need force touch for them to remove the home button.

Right. The next step is figuring out how to implement Touch ID.

 

[Nunyabinez]

How is that adding functionality?

That isn't. That is preserving existing functionality. But there are a dozen new things that you can do if you want to. A bad update would be adding new features and changing how you are used to having the original features work.