8 Don’t Forget About 3D Touch
When iPhone debuted over a decade ago, many were shocked to see that Apple had ditched physical keyboards in favor of touch-sensitive display. But now, capacitive touchscreens are the standard.
The iPhone supports multitouch and 3D touch. So be touchy. In addition to pinch to zoom, multitouch lets you close multiple apps at once and some apps allow you to touch multiple points of the screen at once while interacting. When Apple introduced the Apple Watch it had Force Touch. Force Touch allows users to press harder on the display to display other options.
Newer iPhones have a supercharged version of Force Touch known as 3D Touch. 3D Touch works much like Force Touch, but it also recognizes how hard you press the display. When pressing on some app icons you’ll be presented with other options or a widget. Other apps support what Apple calls “peek” and “pop.”
Lets say your looking through your inbox in the Mail app and you see two emails from Eli. One of them has information about an upcoming event, but you can’t remember which. You can lightly press each message to “peek” and get a quick look at the contents of the message. When you’re “peeking” at the one you want, press a little harder to “pop” into the full message.
3D Touch has been called gimmicky by some users, but the iPhone is quickly becoming more powerful and it’s always in our pockets. The ability to interact with the display in new ways can expand our ability to work productively. Additionally, some games—such as GRID Autosport—can use 3D Touch as a replacement for analog triggers. GRID (a racing game) uses 3D Touch to allow players to adjust the amount of throttle or braking that’s applied to their car.