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Is Apple's 3D Touch a 'Huge Waste' of Engineering Talent?
Three years ago, Apple introduced 3D Touch for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, a pressure-sensitive feature that uses capacitive sensors integrated into the smartphone's display to sense three degrees of pressure in a user's touch and respond differently based on the amount of pressure exerted. It's a neat idea as it has allowed users to interact with the user interface in a completely new way. Now, with the release of the new iPhone XR, Apple seems to be on the way to phasing it out. The Verge reports: While both the new iPhone XS and XS Max include 3D Touch, Apple has chosen not to include the feature on the iPhone XR. Yes, that phone is cheaper, and Apple had to strip out some features, but 3D Touch has been included on iPhones in that price range since it was introduced not too long ago, so this feels less like necessary cost savings and more like planned omission. There have always been a few core problems with 3D Touch. For one, its use often amounted to the right click of a mouse, which is funny coming from the company that famously refused to put a dedicated right button on its mice or trackpads. And selecting from those right click options was rarely faster or a substantially more useful way of getting something done than just tapping the button and manually navigating to where you needed to go. People also didn't know the feature was there. The iPhone did little to train users on 3D Touch. And even the people who knew it was there had no way to tell which icons supported it without just 3D pressing everything to see what happened.
Apple isn't entirely removing the concept of 3D Touch from the iPhone XR. Instead, the phone will include something Apple is calling Haptic Touch, which will make a click when you activate a button's secondary feature by pressing and holding it. But that replacement underscores just how useless 3D Touch has really become: it's not more than a very, very fancy long press. That's something phones have always been capable of. And despite the name, I've found long press features to be faster and easier to use than their 3D Touch equivalent. Instagram, for instance, lets you preview photos with a 3D Touch on the iPhone or a long press on Android. I find the Android version to be simpler and quicker. Here's what Apple's marketing leader, Phil Schiller, had to say about the feature back in 2015 when it was first introduced: "'Engineering-wise, the hardware to build a display that does what [3D Touch] does is unbelievably hard,' says Schiller. 'And we're going to waste a whole year of engineering -- really, two -- at a tremendous amount of cost and investment in manufacturing if it doesn't do something that [people] are going to use. If it's just a demo feature and a month later nobody is really using it, this is a huge waste of engineering talent.'"
Apple isn't entirely removing the concept of 3D Touch from the iPhone XR. Instead, the phone will include something Apple is calling Haptic Touch, which will make a click when you activate a button's secondary feature by pressing and holding it. But that replacement underscores just how useless 3D Touch has really become: it's not more than a very, very fancy long press. That's something phones have always been capable of. And despite the name, I've found long press features to be faster and easier to use than their 3D Touch equivalent. Instagram, for instance, lets you preview photos with a 3D Touch on the iPhone or a long press on Android. I find the Android version to be simpler and quicker. Here's what Apple's marketing leader, Phil Schiller, had to say about the feature back in 2015 when it was first introduced: "'Engineering-wise, the hardware to build a display that does what [3D Touch] does is unbelievably hard,' says Schiller. 'And we're going to waste a whole year of engineering -- really, two -- at a tremendous amount of cost and investment in manufacturing if it doesn't do something that [people] are going to use. If it's just a demo feature and a month later nobody is really using it, this is a huge waste of engineering talent.'"
Sometimes you just have to try an idea to see if it's practical, and see what software developers do it with. Being on the cutting edge means the idea may just flub out.
Table-ized A.I.
There are a lot of good ideas that just don’t catch on at the time. 3D Touch May be one of them. But the engineering talent and lessons learned are extremely valuable. And the principals may be used in the future.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Apple is becoming increasingly infamous for fucking around with weird stuff while removing basic functionality that lots of users wanted.
Two examples are the removal of the headphone jack and the deletion of the MagSafe connector.
Apple can brag all it wants about how awesome their design is, but the truth is their design sucks ASS.
I never thought I would say this, but I am looking forward to switching to Linux. And my next phone may well be a non-smartphone. I am done allowing companies to pull the rug out from under me after I paid lots of cash to buy into their system.
Actually, pen and paper are looking good right now. Smartphones are a joke anyway, the screen is too small to use for any serious work.
Weird, slashdot summary has no link to the actual Verge story....
https://www.theverge.com/circu...
Meanwhile every other touch vendor gets exactly the same functionality with a much easier to control, and far more intuitive method; long press.
That's a 'Huge Waste' of Ergonomics Talent.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I use 3D touch multiple times every day when editing sentences in Messages and Mail. Pressing down on the keyboard and then moving the cursor within the text like the display is a giant mousing surface is way, way easier than trying to poke the cursor into the text by tapping it directly. I'm happy to see the feature stick around just for that use case.
The biggest problem was that because it is not on all the range of hardware they sell, Apple couldn't integrate it as a core UI navigation tool and third party developers for the most part ignored it due to lack of consumer awareness
Is the dual camera a huge waste of engineering talent?
Is the OLED display a huge waste of engineering talent?
Is super-retina resolution a huge waste of engineering talent?
Is a 120Hz refresh rate a huge waste of engineering talent?
Is IP68 certification a huge waste of engineering talent?
Is "the most durable glass ever in a smartphone" a huge waste of engineering talent?
All of these are omitted from the iPhone XR, a premium, but cost-reduced model.
Why, SURELY Apple must be planning on dropping all of these features on ALL of their models. Boy, what a waste of engineering talent!
Or, so goes the reasoning of this misguided article.
I use that too but like the other responder, I think what is happening there is doable just with gesture recognizers that detect a long press and then start tracking movement. In fact I'm pretty sure when it's actually tracking where to move the cursor at that point it's just tracking motion, not pressure - so 3D Touch is only used to activate the feature.
A long press activation could be worse in that it may take more time to activate the keyboard cursor though.
I've been looking but I have not seen word one way or the other from the hands on trials if the R model still supported the keyboard cursor...
I'm a bit sad to see the feature go but I have to admit I barely used it (was nice on Springboard and push notifications though).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hold down when the keyboard is up, and you can move the text cursor - really useful.
Also try a hard press on notifications, they also generally have very useful options (I use that every day along with the keyboard).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Who actually pushes on the screen gently, normal, and hard? Probably statistically insignificant. Tap screen, expect response.
Remember who else "solved" this problem? Sony, with the PS2 controller. The face buttons were analog, so you could go easy on the gas and brake in Ridge Racer & GT. Turns out, the L2/R2 triggers were much more effective for analog control. Gamers (like me) just mash the face buttons. Using your ring and pinky fingers plus your thumb is WAY more difficult versus using your index or middle fingers plus your palm to generate the analog signal.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Guess what, my finger is either at 0% or 100%. I try to modulate it with varying results, but after 6 years of PS3 gaming I'm still full on or full off 99% of the time. The other 1% is me feathering it.
My phone's touchscreen is a lot less discerning that my PS3 controller. And I still have a bitch of a time with games that provide, I dunno, a slider. I want 50%, I settle for 45%, but when my finger leaves the screen I'm at 60%. I can't imagine 3D will make this situation any better.
3D Touch has completely changed the iPhone's utility in music production and creation of visual arts.
I'm sorry that it doesn't help you use Waze or Mail any faster. It's not all about that.
If 3D Touch is on its way out, then the iPhone Xs may be in my pocket until it dies and parts are no longer available. I use it every day and it would be a sorely missed piece of my creative suite should it die.
The SE didn't have 3D touch either. They don't put premium features in phones aimed at low rent boomer retirees.
The iPhone XR isn't an SE replacement nor is it "aimed at low rent boomer retirees" though.
The iPhone SE had a starting price of $399. The iPhone XR has a starting price of $749.
Just because the iPhone XR doesn't have 3D Touch doesn't mean Apple's phasing it out. If they were, the iPhone XS and XS Max wouldn't have 3D Touch either. Leaving out a feature(s) is how Apple gets people to pay up for the iPhone XS.
OMG! The iPhone XR doesn't have an OLED display. Apple must be phasing OLED displays out.
OMG! The iPhone XR doesn't have a dual lens rear camera. Apple must be phasing out dual lens cameras.
OMG! The iPhone XR's camera doesn't have optical zoom. Apple must be phasing it out in favor of digital zoom.
No.
I find that interesting. I've owned an iPhone and an Android since the HTC G1 and the original iPhone. One for work, one for personal.
I've used a *lot* of long press implementations, and hated them all. 3D Touch was the first implementation of "the long touch" that actually felt... good to me. It innovated on a shitty ass interface and made it vastly more reliable, and less prone to you not holding your finger perfectly still. The argument that 3D touch is unintuitive because you don't know where to use it is ridiculous, as the same argument applies to *any* kind of long touch.
I look forward to my Android having 3D touch some day.
I have used 3D touch on an iPhone 6s : totally useless, at least for me. Hard to discover, and there are always other ways to do the same thing (even with a few more clicks).
However, on the Apple Watch, with its limited input possibilities, 3D touch is great. I use it every day, for instance to clear all notifications.
This is just a company telling consumers what they want instead of asking them what they need.
E Proelio Veritas.
I think I'd prefer the long touch after having and using 3D touch for 11 months.
The thing I like about 3D touch, tapping my phone when it is lying flat so I can see the time/or if I have a message.
The thing I HAAATTTEEE about 3D touch, is using safari, it is infinitely hard to open links in tabs. If you press ever so slightly too hard it registers as 3D touch and opens the link in a semi view or just totally opens the link. I live by opening links in tabs in any browser.
It sounded like a terrific idea - it was an experiment. It turned out to not be such a good idea, but valuable information & feedback has been gained. Who knows, maybe a v2 will come in the future after these years of feedback is digested. It sounds like the long-touch provides "80%" of the functionality without having extra wires and chips. I remember, when it was announced, thinking it was going to be a cool feature as it seemed to have terrific potential.
My wife has it on her phone-7, and my Watch (v0) has it too. It works fine on the Watch because of how hard you need to press it. But I don't like it on the phone - I keep accessing the secondary functions instead of the primary ones. You have to press, but not too hard. Sometimes is does require a hard press. I don't know - it has confused me several times. I don't find it intuitive.
Although on the Watch it is easy to accidentally swap faces. Normally it is hard press but I keep finding different the watch faces active. And the "clear all" hard-press is nice. While not perfect it has been more predictable on the Watch than the iPhone7. Rarely do I access the wrong function on the Watch. But the phone - I constantly access the secondary layer.
Maybe that's it. It works find on a limited input device. But complex input devices (pinch zoom, scroll, swipe etc) just adds complexity.
I might argue that having some of our brightest minds working on phones and ad platforms is a colossal waste of talent...
Yeah, half hearted approach to 3D touch indeed.
Worse... reading specs, I see that NONE of the new iPhones does 120Hz display, or what Apple calls “ProMotion” which they do for their iPad PRO models.
I took the effort of making my apps 120Hz capable, but that seems wasted on the new iPhones.
http://www.stolk.org/tlctc