First take video: 3D Touch adds new depth in navigation for iPhone 6s, 6s Plus
It's been eight years since the original iPhone introduced its fully finger-driven, capacitative multitouch interface, completely erasing the market for button, trackball and stylus-driven phones. This year, Apple is enhancing its iPhone multitouch with the new depth afforded by pressure sensitive 3D Touch technology.
Foreshadowed by Force Touch on Apple Watch, 3D Touch on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus delivers a similar layer of pressure sensitivity, but implements its technology in an entirely new way.
Rather than invoking another layer of button commands, 3D Touch presents new contextual menus and triggers a QuickLook-like preview backed with animations and haptic feedback that reinforce the feeling of direct manipulation within the onscreen interface.
When used with app icons on the Home screen, 3D Touch can offer Quick Actions ranging from recent contacts you might want to Mail or Message, or it can offer shortcuts to actions deep within an app. Apple provides Quick Actions for a variety of its own apps, including Clock, Contacts, Camera (shown below), App Store, iBooks, News, Podcasts, Voice Memos, Video and Notes.
Within lists of Mails or Messages, 3D Touch can offer a quick "Peek" at the item without changing it read status, or offer to take a quick action on the item, such as a reply, forward or deletion. A second 3D Touch on the Peek turns it into a "Pop," Apple's term for opening it up.
"Peek and Pop" lets users jump in and out of content without losing their current place or requiring manual navigation to return to where they were. In addition to Mail and Messages, it currently also works in Apple's built it Camera and Photos, Safari, Calendar, Maps, Music, News, Notes, Video, Weather and Find My Friends apps.
The feature also works on attachments, hyperlinks and other content the user might want to preview before choosing to actually open it.
For example, a Peek at a webpage URL brings up a preview of the actual page; a reference to a map location shows it on a live map; and a reference to a flight number can bring up flight information.
Peek and Pop can also be supported by third parties. For example, the 3D Touch feature will work in Instagram to view a single photo quickly, and then even favorite it, without fully opening it into its own page.
Twitter, Dropbox, Pinterest and Shazam already have introduced apps with support for 3D Touch, and many more developers have announced plans to implement support for it in the near future.
The new layer of navigation 3D Touch brings to iOS devices lets users quickly review graphics, messages and other content appearing in a long list without thinking about return navigation. Where we've tired it, it works rapidly and intuitively.
Other existing implementation of 3D Touch in iOS 9 include Notes' support for pressure sensitive drawing strokes, as well as annotations made in Mail Markup on attachments; a deep press on Live Photos to bring up their animation and ambient audio; trackpad support for navigating by touch on the keyboard; and deep pressing on the left side of the screen to switch between background apps.
We will be providing a closer look at how 3D Touch works in our full review of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Foreshadowed by Force Touch on Apple Watch, 3D Touch on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus delivers a similar layer of pressure sensitivity, but implements its technology in an entirely new way.
Rather than invoking another layer of button commands, 3D Touch presents new contextual menus and triggers a QuickLook-like preview backed with animations and haptic feedback that reinforce the feeling of direct manipulation within the onscreen interface.
When used with app icons on the Home screen, 3D Touch can offer Quick Actions ranging from recent contacts you might want to Mail or Message, or it can offer shortcuts to actions deep within an app. Apple provides Quick Actions for a variety of its own apps, including Clock, Contacts, Camera (shown below), App Store, iBooks, News, Podcasts, Voice Memos, Video and Notes.
Within lists of Mails or Messages, 3D Touch can offer a quick "Peek" at the item without changing it read status, or offer to take a quick action on the item, such as a reply, forward or deletion. A second 3D Touch on the Peek turns it into a "Pop," Apple's term for opening it up.
"Peek and Pop" lets users jump in and out of content without losing their current place or requiring manual navigation to return to where they were. In addition to Mail and Messages, it currently also works in Apple's built it Camera and Photos, Safari, Calendar, Maps, Music, News, Notes, Video, Weather and Find My Friends apps.
The feature also works on attachments, hyperlinks and other content the user might want to preview before choosing to actually open it.
For example, a Peek at a webpage URL brings up a preview of the actual page; a reference to a map location shows it on a live map; and a reference to a flight number can bring up flight information.
Peek and Pop can also be supported by third parties. For example, the 3D Touch feature will work in Instagram to view a single photo quickly, and then even favorite it, without fully opening it into its own page.
Twitter, Dropbox, Pinterest and Shazam already have introduced apps with support for 3D Touch, and many more developers have announced plans to implement support for it in the near future.
The new layer of navigation 3D Touch brings to iOS devices lets users quickly review graphics, messages and other content appearing in a long list without thinking about return navigation. Where we've tired it, it works rapidly and intuitively.
Other existing implementation of 3D Touch in iOS 9 include Notes' support for pressure sensitive drawing strokes, as well as annotations made in Mail Markup on attachments; a deep press on Live Photos to bring up their animation and ambient audio; trackpad support for navigating by touch on the keyboard; and deep pressing on the left side of the screen to switch between background apps.
We will be providing a closer look at how 3D Touch works in our full review of the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.
Comments
"3D Touch adds new depth"
Are you proud of that? Are you proud of that thing you just said?
I hope 3D touch will bring the scroll wheel back to the iPod/iPhone.
Right now skimming a one hour dj set is near impossible. I am missing the fine grain control I used to have with the iPod classic. A virtual scroll wheel would be a very welcome addition to ? music.
forced, at knife point. forced into a hot boiling pot.
Anyone else have this problem?
I'm so pissed, "We've incorrectly sorted the package at our facility. This may cause at least one business day delay."
Looks like hanging out all day monday for the UPS guy.
How does one delete an app now?
And a pop isn't another 3D Touch (press), it is 3D because you press harder for pop - unlike the Apple Watch, the iPhone has at least two levels of sensitivity to pressure.
This will add amazing aftertouch potential for all GarageBand (and other music production) instruments.
And can user change Quick Actions or you are forced to use only the default ones?
You just have to chuckle and shake your head. Day one you'll have people like this that think they know better than Apple.
Realistically, do you have any concept of just how many people and how much time was spent on deciding what the shortcuts would be? Apple knows better than you. One day, you will likely be able to change those shortcuts via settings as other quality options come to light. I just think it's hilarious that right of out the gates there are people like this that think, "F whatever Apple made as presets, I have better ideas for shortcuts."
But does it really warrant 3 separate articllettes on 3 separate features -- that add little to what was known on announce day (from those who got hands-on).
But, we are promised a follow-on full review (or 3?).
Edit:
Here's a [I]Groaner:[/I]: [I] Boener's [/I] a [I] Goner! [/I] (All pronounced similarly).
Rest assured, there will be dozens more duplicative stories to come, each with a slightly different spin.
Anyone else have this problem?
I'm so pissed, "We've incorrectly sorted the package at our facility. This may cause at least one business day delay."
Looks like hanging out all day monday for the UPS guy.
I've had that happen, but not with an iPhone. I missed out on a college football game because of UPS doing that.
Apologies in advance for responding to myself, but I forgot that the iPad Pro unfortunately does not have 3D Touch, instead it has the Apple Pencil functionality. Probably gen 2 or 3 will also allow 3D Touch.
An exciting additional benefit to Peek and Pop is the new way you can use it to select text. Hopefully it will alleviate the frustrating experience I always have with the magnifying glass.
You can scrub at granular rates by lowing moving your finger away from the scroll bar while scrolling. It explains it on the screen in the Music app.
That's what I'm most excited for.
I went to an Apple store to try it out. You press harder on the keyboard and the cursor flies around the screen.
MUCH better than the old magnifying glass.
How does one delete an app now?
Touch screen, leave finger on, as usual. You have to put a bit of pressure to get the force functions to activate. If it weren't the case, you couldn't even use your phone as you use it prior to 6s...
And can user change Quick Actions or you are forced to use only the default ones?
You just have to chuckle and shake your head. Day one you'll have people like this that think they know better than Apple.
Realistically, do you have any concept of just how many people and how much time was spent on deciding what the shortcuts would be? Apple knows better than you. One day, you will likely be able to change those shortcuts via settings as other quality options come to light. I just think it's hilarious that right of out the gates there are people like this that think, "F whatever Apple made as presets, I have better ideas for shortcuts."
If multiple people are thinking the question right of the bat, I'd hope that Apple already thought of it too - and it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to implement at least some degree of choice in the menus - e.g. in Settings, put a tab for selecting the various app menus. I never take selfies, or slo-mo video; and I'd think that for almost everyone the most common use of the camera is to take a photo... so why is "take photo" the 4th & lowest down option? Seems like it should be straightforward enough to give me toggles in a Settings page to turn some of the selections on or off (show them or not show them).
(To be clear, for this reactive crowd - I'm not saying that because I don't take selfies, I think it's the height of idiocy for Apple to include "Take Selfie" as a menu option for everyone, or that it shouldn't be an option. All I'm saying is that I think it does make very intuitive sense that a user should be able to change the menu listings, and that it doesn't seem like it should be that hard to implement.)
That's what I'm most excited for.
I went to an Apple store to try it out. You press harder on the keyboard and the cursor flies around the screen.
MUCH better than the old magnifying glass.
I tried it out in-store also. It is indeed much easier than the magnifying glass.
However, I couldn't get the text selection to work consistently. I think you have to first get the cursor going, then let go of all pressure, then apply pressure again for the text selection to work. I found it very frustrating because it didn't work consistently. The feature seems not ready for primetime.