3D Touch

3D Touch (The ‘Smart’ Short Cut that Nobody uninstalled)

In 2015, Apple introduced a pressure-sensitive screen feature called 3D Touch with the iPhone 6s. This let them press harder on the screen to unlock new features– say, previews of emails and app shortcuts or quicker access to taking selfies– all without having to open an app itself.

Monitoring across different levels of pressure was achieved by using custom sensors mounted under the display. Hence you could “peek” at something with a light press and “pop” it open with a deeper press. It was undeniably cool, had that sexy tech feel to it and gave power users an extra level of valence.

This feature, called 3D Touch, was integrated aft wide throughout the system – from quick actions on the home screen to pressure-sensitive drawing in notes and photo editing.

But here’s the deal: a lot of people didn’t use it. Some others were completely unaware of even its existence! This also increased hardware complexity. Well, Apple just replaced it with the iPhone XR and then started quietly replacing it on the iPad Air 3… — A more basic long-press + vibration combo that created the illusion without needing any of those super expensive pressure sensors…

Though 3D Touch is now officially defunct, a fact that belies my hesitation late last year to predict its doom, the concept lives on in current iPhones with Haptic Touch — meaning from that standpoint, while it was not immortalized executionally, the metaphor endures.