3D Touch is likely to go away later this year

Jun 6, 2019 12:38 GMT  ·  By

What was only a rumor a couple of months ago is very close to becoming reality: Apple is giving up on 3D Touch on the next-generation iPhone in favor of the Haptic Touch system already used on the iPhone XR.

At first glance, this can only be bad news. Introduced on the iPhone 6s and used on every iPhone since then (except for the iPhone XR mentioned above), 3D Touch allows users to press harder on the display in order to reveal special features like Peek and Pop and Quick Actions.

Thanks to a pressure-sensitive display, 3D Touch makes it possible to simply preview content on the screen without having to open it. And with Quick Actions, you can just press harder on the icons on the Home screen and do certain things faster, such as writing a new email.

But with Apple pushing harder for increased screen estate, every inch inside the iPhone is critical, so the company can no longer offer 3D Touch on new models. Not when a software-based alternative is already available.

After changes discovered in iOS 13 suggested that 3D Touch is indeed going away in September, Apple itself confirms on the Human Interface Guidelines page that the next version of iOS will introduce support for a long-press gesture. Codenamed Haptic Touch, this long-press gesture has been around for a while on Android and implemented by Apple itself on the iPhone XR last year.

Thanks to the Taptic Engine, the difference between 3D Touch and Haptic Touch isn’t necessarily that big, albeit it’s more noticeable in terms of performance. Haptic Touch generates a small vibration, and it can be used nearly in all the places where 3D Touch was available, with the exception of shortcuts on the lock screen, although I expect Apple to expand it here as well very soon.

Basically, despite being implemented at a software level, Haptic Touch should work and feel just like 3D Touch. The only problem is the difference in speed between the two.

A long-press on a home screen icon takes more time than a hard-press on the same icon, and Apple seems to agree with this despite getting ready to kill 3D Touch for good.

“On 3D Touch devices, the gesture can reveal the context menu more quickly,” Apple says.

Certainly, Haptic Touch still needs plenty of refinements before being considered a fully-featured replacement to 3D Touch, but an iPhone without a pressure sensitive screen isn’t the end of the world. And there are three reasons for this.

First of all, without 3D Touch Apple can further improve the display of the iPhone, increase the available screen estate, and push harder for other upgrades that could eventually go live in the coming years. For example, it’s believed that Apple wants to bring Touch ID back sometime in the coming years, and the fingerprint sensor might be embedded directly in the glass a la Samsung Galaxy S10.

Second of all, an increased focus on Haptic Touch could make it just as refined as 3D Touch. A long-press gesture has been around for so long on Android, so it’s probably just a matter of time until you get used to it and forget about 3D Touch anyway.

And third of all, a software-based system could also help Apple achieve a higher level of consistency across its device lineup. At this point, some devices do come with 3D Touch, but others are not, and this can only lead to more confusion that eventually doesn’t help anyone. With the long-press gesture, Apple can make this feature available for everyone regardless of the iPhone model.

For now, Apple remains tight-lipped on this important change, but don’t expect things to go smoothly once 3D Touch goes away. But just like it happened when Apple removed the headphone jack, some will embrace Haptic Touch from the very beginning, others will resist the change, but eventually everyone will just get used to it.