
Why Apple's 3D Touch failed miserably - solarkraft
https://hackernoon.com/why-apples-3d-touch-failed-miserably-72545b608ad
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askaboutit
It is the number 1 feature for me when writing text. I move between letters
with accuracy and I don’t have to move my finger over the letters. Which often
covers the letter I want to find.

I can’t believe it’s not in the XR.

~~~
imwally
iOS 12 introduces this feature to devices without 3D Touch. Just press and
hold the space bar until the characters on the keys disappear.

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ksec
On iOS 12, iPhone 6s Plus ( which has 3D Touch ), 3D Touch for moving between
text doesn't work anymore and requires using it on Space Bar. ( Anyone knows
why ? )

So three years after its introduction, its only major use is for moving
between text. And if it were so good you would bet all the Android phones
would have copied it. And so far none of them did. If by 2020 we still don't
have an killer feature for this I question whether that extra $15-20 BOM cost
as well as internal space for battery is worth it. Subtracting some display
cost for supporting 3D Touch, we are paying roughly ~RSP $50 for this one
feature.

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TheOtherHobbes
There was a potential rather aggressive - not quite killer - app on the iPad
Pro, which was multitouch pressure sensitivity for music applications.

Poly aftertouch is missing from most keyboards, and it wouldn't have taken
much to turn the iPad Pro into a virtual Roli Seaboard.

But so far there's been no 3D Touch on any version of the Pro. So that never
happened.

The other everyday UI applications aren't very interesting. IME it's too hard
to gauge touch accurately to use the feature for anything useful, so most of
the time it just gets in the way.

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xt00
It took me forever to figure out that you can force push on a picture then
swipe up to give me sharing options.. where as just pushing lightly and
holding brings up a menu right away — or did before.. so it definitely felt
like a solution looking for a problem and in fact added a degree of freedom to
the UI that didn’t need to be there.. for example while it might sound
_clever_ to add the ability to say double click keys on your keyboard for
separate functions it basically means you have to divide your motor memory up
into multiple areas. Anyway, I suspect very few people would notice if 3D
Touch died.. I hope it goes away soon.. so lame.. sure the technology might be
cool but not helpful on my phone..

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modwilliam
Personally, it was always hard for me to figure out how much of the utility of
3D touch could just be achieved with long pressing. With the time that it
takes to press down your finger, you're basically long pressing anyway

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snailmailman
Personally i don't have this experience. I find 3d touch way faster than a
press and hold. I use it all the time to open links in new tabs in safari, its
basically a right click. Instead of "tap, wait a second, open in background"
its "press in and swipe up, open in background"

Although the functionality is mostly the same, it feels so much faster to me.

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willio58
Considering 3D Touch is still in the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs max, I don’t
think it has failed. Personally I use it all the time while using my phone for
notifications and the quick app actions.

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ajoy39
Dead is probably too strong but it is pretty telling of Apple's internal
thoughts on the feature that they would leave it off a new phone

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MiddleEndian
Somewhat related, the early PlayStation 2 fighting gamegame, The Bouncer, used
pressure sensitive buttons for "heavy" vs "light" attacks. It was cool but I
don't think I've seen any similar games since.

~~~
mikewhy
Back when racing games still used the cross button for accelerate lots used
the pressure-sensitive face buttons. Some sports games used them for
light/heavy actions. The Metal Gear Solid series did as well, for aiming vs
shooting your weapon.

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snaky
> Or maybe the replacement for the 3D touch technology could be the addition
> of Apple Pencil support (something that has been expected in the last two
> years) and the introduction of an Apple Pencil Mini and special iPhone cases
> with pencil holders.

Yes, please.

And you don't need any special iPhone cases, just copy the way Samsung
invented for S-Pen capable gadgets a long ago.

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swingline-747
The root causes are:

0\. There's no affordance in the regular UI/UX indicating 3D Touch is
available.

1\. It's awkward.

2\. It's too much like long press when a longer press would've done the same
without adding more hardware.

