Jeremy Horwitz, VentureBeat:
Back in 2015, Apple introduced pressure-sensitive iPhone screens alongside 3D Touch as a potentially major hardware-software innovation, but barely supported the feature, leading to informed speculation that all of 2019’s iPhones would lose their pressure-sensing hardware. Today’s release of the fourth iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 developer betas appears to put the final nail in 3D Touch’s coffin, tightening up the responsiveness of its replacement: Context Menus.
And:
Over the last few beta releases of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13, Apple has been rolling out a replacement called Context Menus — a change it set the stage for last year by releasing the iPhone XR without 3D Touch hardware.
Great explanation of how all this works. Personally, I like the new approach. I find it more consistent across all my devices. I found 3D Touch to be too hidden, low discoverability.
I like the fact that touch has become just plain touch. I no longer have to guess how hard to press a button. Now the choice is between tap, and long press. And that works well for me.
I think your last point is probably the most compelling argument for getting rid of it: the user experience is simpler and more consistent. Being less discoverable isn’t inherently bad; power users will seek out time-saving features like keyboard shortcuts or key/click combinations for Mac, they’ll do the same for iOS. But the problem with 3D Touch is that you have to determine if your device can even support those features, in addition to learning the secret handshake. That’s not great. The replacement feature can be just as good, if not better.
The other problem with 3D Touch is that it takes too much thought and sometimes retries to do a long press and not do a 3D touch.
Exactly this 100%. With 3D touch enabled, moving an app icon from a folder on your home screen to another folder on your home screen causes the same level of anxiety as receiving a call while you’re on a conference call (and the most perplexing action menu of all time appears).
I hate 3D-touch, because I’m always activating it when I don’t want to, or vice-versa.
To be the one dissenting voice here, I am really going to miss 3D touch. It is the “right click” of iOS, and I use it every day. The only reason this didn’t take off, is because of discoverability – which has not been improved at all… Apple really needs to add a tiny visual indicator that shows the end user that there is now a haptic touch option on that icon or at that location.
3D Touch should have always been an alternative to long touch, and Apple should have made sure it worked everywhere (even if it does something useless by default in apps that don’t support it).
Apple was too in love with the long touch to rearrange the home screen for 3D Touch to have a fair shot.