Latest iOS 17 Beta Makes Haptic Touch Faster

[zach-coleman]

I wonder why they never copied that idea Google came up with to detect how your finger hits the screen in order to determine you’re pressing harder without extra hardware. Maybe they want to wait until 3D touch is totally dead in supported devices before they reintroduce basically the same idea a second time.

 

[nelloismello]

It's still not entirely clear why???

Of course it's clear! The force touch compatible display was more expensive and thicker than a standard display panel. They removed the feature to reduce production costs and to free up internal space for other components. And they replaced the feature by another one who is not 99% but mostly the same. Win win. And yes, I miss 3D Touch.

It's not even close, 3D touch was amazing and I used it heavily on a daily basis on the phone and watch haptic touch cannot replace the missing features. Removing it was one of the worst decisions they've made in a very long time.

3D touch was like a car accelerator, pressure sensitive now its just like tapping a button. It's complete crap.

There was games especially that made full use of it, hold the screen gently to accelerate and the harder you pressed the faster you went. Or waking, touch gently to walk and the harder you press the faster you ran. 3D touch worked exactly like an anoluge trigger which haptic can't do.

Also I remember this was a hot topic by the UX community as 3D touch was considered an accessibility nightmare when it came to usability as it requires pressure and fine motor skills. This is because users with certain disabilities may have a hard time hitting a touch target while applying pressure.

Despite that, the feature was certainly under utilized and Apple does save money by removing the pressure sensor.

 

[svish]

Good to see this option for Haptic touch.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

I just compared this on my 14PM to actual 3D touch on my 8 plus (iOS 16). It’s literally the same feeling. iOS just don’t take real advantage of 3D touch anymore. It used to be software magic when pressing the icons, photos, links, and etc. But now it’s just the same as a long press. I have no idea which version of iOS changed it.

 

[Radeon85]

Think it was the launch of the iPhone 11 and iOS 13 that Apple pretty much removed 3D touch features and replaced it with haptic instead.

 

[adrianlondon]

I have a just-made-up hypothesis that the death of 3D touch is also what led the death of the Touch Bar on laptops.

Developers saw the new 3D touch (on the iPhone 6S) and coded cool stuff to take advantage of it. Apple rather quickly killed it. Developers learnt not to bother with new hardware functions unless it was standardised across all models and Apple made a commitment to it.

Hence many developers didn't put much effort into the Touch Bar, especially as it was never implemented across the entire range (Pro, Air, 12" Macbook RIP).

 

[MrCrowbar]

Can we speed up overall system animations would be nice

Yes please, I have the "reduce animations" turned off because I hate waiting for UI elements to slide into place. At least when they fade it I can already move my thumb so it's tap-ready.

I'm missing out on the live photos auto-playing as I swipe through photos (love that) but I just can't handle the unlocking animation, please let me turn that off and enable the live photos while swiping.

 

[haincha]

Just enabled. This feels good already. I missed 3D Touch dearly. Haptic Touch has felt SO SLOW in terms of activating it. Glad this option exists.

 

[reklex]

In my opinion, Haptic Touch was already 99% the same thing as 3D Touch.

you clearly don’t know what 3D Touch was accomplishing then.

 

[Squillace]

I have a just-made-up hypothesis that the death of 3D touch is also what led the death of the Touch Bar on laptops.

Developers saw the new 3D touch (on the iPhone 6S) and coded cool stuff to take advantage of it. (...)

They didn't. As said earlier, 3D Touch was an underused feature and apart from Apple own apps, not that many 3rd party apps took advantage of it. But again, I believe it's Apple's fault for not advertising the feature properly.

 

[xpxp2002]

A weak reason IMO. The phone could be minimally thicker without issue and we don’t really know how much Apple saved by removing the feature. Haptic Touch isn’t “mostly the same.” It’s barely 50% of the functionality of 3D Touch.

It’s unusual for Apple to take back genuinely useful interface innovations. I think that’s why many of us continue to miss it.

There was an article I saw a couple years ago that suggested that Apple dropped it because some patent troll claimed Apple was infringing on a specific pressure sensitivity design that 3D Touch implemented. So rather than fight it, buy them out, or pay to license the patent; they just stopped using it. Perhaps they were comfortable doing that because developer uptake wasn't enough that they felt compelled to keep supporting it.

Makes a lot more sense than all the people who insist that the 0.001mm or whatever they gained in the substrate thickness enabled them to put some ginormously higher capacity battery inside the same chassis. The difference in iPhone 11 Pro battery life over the XS is easily attributable to the gains in moving from the A12 to the A13 and the more efficient cellular baseband.

 

[Surf Monkey]

There was an article I saw a couple years ago that suggested that Apple dropped it because some patent troll claimed Apple was infringing on a specific pressure sensitivity design that 3D Touch implemented. So rather than fight it, buy them out, or pay to license the patent; they just stopped using it. Perhaps they were comfortable doing that because developer uptake wasn't enough that they felt compelled to keep supporting it.

Makes a lot more sense than all the people who insist that the 0.001mm or whatever they gained in the substrate thickness enabled them to put some ginormously higher capacity battery inside the same chassis. The difference in iPhone 11 Pro battery life over the XS is easily attributable to the gains in moving from the A12 to the A13 and the more efficient cellular baseband.

Interesting. I hadn’t heard that angle but that sure does make sense.

 

[Radeon85]

Hopefully one day they make a second attempt at it or at least something very close to it.

 

[wohmiguel]

I wish Apple created an actual substitute for the feature that would actually behave like 3D Touch did. From what I remember, somebody suggested this: When you press harder on the screen, the part of the finger touching the screen gets larger because more skin is touching the screen (that sort of thing). So, why not translate that into force? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard, right? hopefully...

I just really want a proper 3D Touch alternative because after they removed its actual functionality after watchOS something, it's kind of sad to see it get killed off slowly. The only thing that closely resembles it is the Force Touch trackpad but it will never be a true replacement. Though, I do wonder if someone could create an app that tries that method...

 

[Populus]

I know we're all thinking it but GOD do I miss 3D touch 😭😭😭 The little tease you could do with it to see whether you wanted to commit fully to the action 😭

Bring her back!!

As much as I love 3D Touch on my iPhone 8, I’m afraid it’s not coming back, because that was a hardware feature that sensed the pressure over the glass, and since the iPhone XR and 11 Pro, the screens don’t have that layer anymore. So, as much as we want it back, it’s gone.

 

[ericthered926]

I just miss text selection with 3D Touch! I know you can move the cursor with Haptic Touch, but you can’t select words with 1 hand like you could with 3D Touch.

 

[RandomTox]

Am I the only one who never used the haptic touch?

 

[adrianlondon]

Am I the only one who never used the haptic touch?

No. I interviewed all 7.9 billion people and someone else also said they'd never used it.

I did press them on their answer, but it seemed however hard I pressed them it made no difference.

 

[Euge]

What Apple says is not to be taken at face value every time. Wired is still superior and Apple removing the jack is why people use wireless now, not some pre-existing push towards wireless by consumers.

I recall at one point someone took apart an iPhone 7 and confirmed there was no room for a headphone jack. That's not to say that Apple may have been able to make engineering decisions to make room for it, but for what was in the phone at the time, there was no room. Later I think they were able to make room for it, especially as the Haptic Engine shrunk in size, but I addressed that in a previous post.

The trend for wireless earbuds was not started by Apple, they accelerated it. There were already a few wireless earbud products that were out or coming out soon at the time. For me, personally, I was looking at a set of earbuds by Bragi. (I think that was the company. It's been quite a few years.) But rumors of the AirPods were stirring, and the Bragi got bad reviews for their microphone. I was going to use them primarily for conference calls so that combined with the rumor had me wait for the AirPods. Surprisingly, the AirPods came in a price about $100 less.

 

[_Spinn_]

Really excited to try this out.

 

[ZubaZ]

In my opinion, Haptic Touch was already 99% the same thing as 3D Touch.

In my opinion, you had no idea what 3D Touch can do.