Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PSA: iPhone SE's Haptic Touch Doesn't Work With Notifications and It's Not a Bug

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,530
39,364


Customers who have purchased the new 2020 iPhone SE have found a surprising missing feature - Haptic Touch does not work with notifications.

On the 2020 iPhone SE, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or on the Lock screen does not appear to bring up rich notification options to allow iPhone SE users to interact with incoming content.

richnotificationsiphone11pro.jpg
Rich notifications accessed with Haptic Touch on an iPhone 11 Pro​

There have been complaints about the missing feature on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. From Reddit:
I received my SE yesterday and very quickly realized that Haptic Touch is not supported on notifications. I am not seeing this reported anywhere, haven't seen one review mentioning it, no video I watched mentioned it. Haptic Touch works for peek and pop, and on icons on the home screen but if you are on the lock screen or Notification Center and try to long press an email to archive, or a text to quick reply you are out of luck.

On the 6S-XS 3D Touch was the solution, with the XR and 11 series Haptic Touch was the replacement, but this is the first non 3D Touch phone to be released where all the features of Haptic Touch are not fully baked into the OS
Click to expand...
With Haptic Touch-enabled devices like the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or the Lock screen brings up interactive options based on the app sending the notification. An Apple News notification, for example, brings up options for reading the full story, sharing a story, or saving for later, while an email app might offer options to reply and delete an incoming message without needing to open the app.

In our testing, we were not able to long press on a notification to view these interactive options, as the long press functionality did not work. We also tried on an iPhone 8, which the iPhone SE is based on, but we were able to get the rich notifications to work on that device, which has 3D Touch.

While iPhone SE users cannot long press on notifications on the Lock screen or in the Notification Center, there does appear to be a Haptic Touch option when pressing on an incoming notification when the iPhone is in use.

A Reddit user called Apple Support and was told there was no software update planned to fix the behavior, but Apple Support can be unreliable when it comes to information about new hardware releases.

Update: According to TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino, the lack of Haptic Touch for notifications on the iPhone SE is not a bug and the feature is working as Apple intended.



Update 2: MacRumors forum members have pointed out that it's possible to slide to the left on a notification and tap on the "View" option as a workaround for the missing Haptic Touch feature.

Article Link: PSA: iPhone SE's Haptic Touch Doesn't Work With Notifications and It's Not a Bug
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/27/iphone-se-haptic-touch-notifications/
Last edited:
This better be a bug, as a dev having to “inform” users of the various interactions (3D touch, Haptic Touch, drag down) on notifications sucks...and then having a random brand new device not support it at all makes it even worse.

My guess is the SE has a modified iPhone 8 version of iOS, which is expecting 3D touch to access these things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki, iosfan1991, michaelnugent and 20 others
I’m able to do that stuff without Haptic Touch. I just swipe.

Am I missing something to beech about?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: tridley68
People are saying this is a bug, but it works this same way on the old iPhone SE. It's Apple segmenting software features, even though it leads to an inconsistent UI and user frustration. It's not even a big thing, it's a little thing, and it's annoying that they've decided to do this. Hopefully they reverse course.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shirasaki, crispswish, Oldjackson and 11 others
It’s most likely a bug. If you disable 3D Touch on a 3D Touch enabled device, you can still use Haptic Touch everywhere except on the notifications. Just tested this on my 6S. Since the phone is pretty much an iPhone 8 with updated internals, the build of iOS for the SE is probably derived from that of the iPhone 8 and they overlooked that.
With that said, I hope they fix that. Was thinking of upgrading my 6S to the SE in hope that on screen fingerprint reader comes to the iPhone and trickles down to whatever the successor of the iPhone 11 is in about 3 years, but if this bug is actually a “feature” instead, I’ll have to rethink that decision. Got used to 3D Touch the notifications to interact with them.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: xpxp2002
Tubamajuba said:
Was the old Apple bug-free? Is any other company bug-free?
Click to expand...

I remember animations stuttering all over iOS back when the iPhone 7 came out, on the new devices. It was infuriating. It took months for them to finally fix it.

Apple has always had buggy releases. Hopefully this one can be fixed quickly as it seems a fairly obvious bug.
 
jclardy said:
My guess is the SE has a modified iPhone 8 version of iOS, which is expecting 3D touch to access these things.
Click to expand...

I'm betting on bug, too, but I don't think this explanation makes sense. I can long press on my iPhone X, is the 8 really different?
[automerge]1588022317[/automerge]
mxrider88 said:
Knowing the “new Apple”, it’s just another bug..
Click to expand...

Comments like this make me laugh. I remember entire subsystems being missing from OS releases back in the 90s.
 
zorinlynx said:
I remember animations stuttering all over iOS back when the iPhone 7 came out, on the new devices. It was infuriating. It took months for them to finally fix it.

Apple has always had buggy releases. Hopefully this one can be fixed quickly as it seems a fairly obvious bug.
Click to expand...
I remember stuttering when swiping between homescreens when iOS 13 was released. Took until 13.2 until that was fixed.
 
11:11 - Someone’s having a spiritual awakening :).

MacRumors said:


Customers who have purchased the new 2020 iPhone SE have found a surprising missing feature - Haptic Touch does not work with notifications.

On the 2020 iPhone SE, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or on the Lock screen does not appear to bring up rich notification options to allow iPhone SE users to interact with incoming content.

richnotificationsiphone11pro.jpg


Rich notifications accessed with Haptic Touch on an iPhone 11 Pro​

There have been complaints about the missing feature on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. From Reddit:With Haptic Touch-enabled devices like the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or the Lock screen brings up interactive options based on the app sending the notification. An Apple News notification, for example, brings up options for reading the full story, sharing a story, or saving for later, while an email app might offer options to reply and delete an incoming message without needing to open the app.

In our testing, we were not able to long press on a notification to view these interactive options, as the long press functionality did not work. We also tried on an iPhone 8, which the iPhone SE is based on, but we were able to get the rich notifications to work on that device, which has 3D Touch.

While iPhone SE users cannot long press on notifications on the Lock screen or in the Notification Center, there does appear to be a Haptic Touch option when pressing on an incoming notification when the iPhone is in use.

A Reddit user called Apple Support and was told there was no software update planned to fix the behavior, but Apple Support can be unreliable when it comes to information about new hardware releases.

Article Link: PSA: iPhone SE's Haptic Touch Doesn't Work With Notifications
Click to expand...
 
Can’t remember ever using this feature but it must suck for anyone Who gotten used to it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SantaFeNM
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back