13 ms·
I hate the name, but the 3d touch is a nice interaction model. I really like peaking as a UI metaphor. It helps slice through layers of information without com
by bane 11y ago
I hate the name, but the 3d touch is a nice interaction model. I really like peaking as a UI metaphor. It helps slice through layers of information without committing to the next layer.
edit and you have to be fucking kidding me with 16GB base models...
edit2 oh, I get it, it's a push for iCloud storage, lame
- snegu 11y agoThat's what hover has done on desktop for a while now. This is not a new concept, just new tech allowing us to do it on touchscreens.
- vowelless 11y agoWhy not just call it force touch, like the macbook? Craig Federighi even had a slip and referred to 3d touch as force touch.
- steckerbrett 11y agoYeah that was definitely a late change.
- bane 11y agoSide note along with this thought, I feel like Apple is going through some kind of naming transition in its lineup: Mac<thing>: e.g. Macbook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro i<thing>: iPod, iPhone, iPad, iSight Apple <thing>: Apple watch, Apple pencil I think the Apple one is the worst, because <thing> seems to be common non-trademarked words and has a weird marketing exec "let's get the branding out there!" strategy. And now it kind of smells like they might be thinking about going to a "Smart <thing>" naming scheme. It makes calling things kind of hard and schizophrenic, most people just default to i<thing> when they don't know what to call it. I hear iWatch at least once a week.
- c54 11y agoThey're copying the facebook-esque thing of grabbing the base word and making that the brand. IE facebook messenger is "messenger", compared to google messenger which is "gchat". Calendar vs "gcal", and so on. Facebook effectively owns the word "like" at this point, has "internet.com", and so on. Apple wants people to be calling the "Apple Watch" just "the Watch".
- derefr 11y agoI don't know about "the Watch"; it's more that they constantly push you to say things like "I'm using my iPhone" rather than "I'm using my phone", whereas with the "Apple" products, they seem to encourage you to just mentally commoditize them and say "I'm using my watch." I could hazard a guess at the reason, too—everyone knows what a phone or a tablet (or a laptop, or a PC) is, and theirs don't break from the trend, so they need to differentiate their product in those lines using the name. Whereas, with the "watch" and the "pencil", they're making a new thing that attempts to redefine the category it's in, and so they want people to start using that name for the category as a whole. Specifically, they want people to think of any accessory-computer used for passive alerts and alarms and checking notifications as a "watch"; and a stylus used primarily for finesse drawing with extra sensory features to enable that as a "pencil." (The latter is also, I think, trying to avoid the current image of a "stylus" as effectively a prosthetic finger for those dumb devices that can't read your touches without it.)
- bad_user 11y agoI don't think Facebook can make their messenger a memorable brand. The actual brand that people think about is Facebook. Messengers these days are a dime and a dozen, with Facebook's messenger being popular because it is "at hand", but that's due to people being active on Facebook. But it's not like Facebook has multiple products, their messenger being part of what Facebook is. Before Facebook my friends where using Yahoo! Messenger. And now it's pretty much dead. "gchat" was actually Google Chat and was about voice and video chat. Now it was replaced by Google Hangouts. It's a pretty cool service, except that they have had two problems - their fuckup with Google+ and the popularity of Skype. Now Skype is a very memorable brand. And it has lots of problems, but people keep using it because it works for group video/audio calls and because it has good prices on calling phone numbers - like, Skype has a freaking monopoly on emigrants and their families or on companies working with remote consultants or employees. In other words, I don't think the actual name matters that much, plus if you pick a weird word you might get more out of it. Googling is now a verb in the dictionary and tweeting should probably be as well.
- frandroid 11y ago> <thing> seems to be common non-trademarked words Hasn't stopped Microsoft being successful with this strategy, e.g. Office, Word, Windows, etc.
- callum85 11y agoThose are metaphors and metonyms. MS Word is not a word. MS Office is not an office. Facebook Messenger is literally a thing that carries messages. Apple Watch is literally a watch.
- jonhohle 11y agoApple Watch is to watches as iPhone is to phones. In both cases they are supersets of what their name suggests, where the consumed set is a tiny fraction of their purpose.
- mmustapic 11y agoAlthough SQL Server is an SQL server :)
- DonHopkins 11y agoTo be fair, MS Word is two letters, a space and a word.
- c54 11y agoI'm guessing the more layered tap vs press vs press-harder interaction is why they decided to rebrand it or give it the different name
- wpietri 11y agoI've never liked that name; it sounds creepy. "Show me on the doll where he force touched you."
- Watabou 11y agoYou can tell they changed the name to 3D touch very late in the development. Most of them probably still call it Force Touch. I liked the name Force Touch. A little creepy, sure, but it made sense, and basically told you what to do.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dreamfactory2 11y agotoo rapey according to focus groups
- mrep 11y agoSue them, the Jedi will
- amyjess 11y agoBecause "Force Touch" is just waiting to turn into a PR nightmare: at some point, people are going to jokingly call it "Bad Touch", and it's going to turn into a widespread meme that embarrasses Apple.
- matthewmcg 11y agoOften when a company has to switch to a less obvious name at the last minute, it's because of trademark issues. There is already a registration covering "ForceTouch" as an input method for computers.[1] [1] https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85616589&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85616589&caseType=SERIAL_...
- wfleming 11y agoWhy wouldn't Apple's current usage of "force touch" also conflict with this?
- camillomiller 11y agoCuriously enough, that's how huawei is calling their implementation on the mate s (which won't be available on those phones until early 2016)
- wjoe 11y agoSounds like it would be very difficult to get right. I can imagine a lot of false positives where I want to do a normal click, but I happen to press lighter than usual so it registers it as a "peek". Maybe they'll do it well enough that this doesn't happen, and maybe it's just something you'd get used to after a while, but to me it's a bit of "trying to be too clever", but then I'm the sort of person that disables things like auto-rotate for that reason.
- cwilson 11y agoHave you tried force touch on an Apple watch? There is definitely a big difference between the two there. I've never once messed it up.
- strange_quark 11y agoAlso the new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The trackpad feels exactly like the old one, but you can just keep pushing it and get a second click. It's really neat and I can't wait until El Capitan and for more apps to take advantage of it.
- dreamfactory2 11y agoI've had one a few weeks and it's still utterly baffling
- digikata 11y agoThough I think I'd like 3D touch just fine, I feel like it will be a difficulty to provide support for less tech centric family members. Something like the left and right mouse buttons and single vs double click, now touch lighter/harder. Touch the icon, is everything blurry except for a little menu, no press lighter now...
- masklinn 11y agoI don't know, pressing light or hard is a much more natural movement than even right/left clicking (let alone double-clicking). I press stuff light or hard all the time (check consistency, poke hole, induce movement, push stuff, etc…). There might be a concern for people with motor ailments though (e.g. post-stroke), but hopefully force touch will stay a feature for shortcuts and peeking. Application features only being accessible via force touch would be terrible (outside of games maybe, since they're not really accessible in the first place)
- angryasian 11y agoI'm just reading the live blog, but can someone provide more details on how this works. To me it just appears to be a contextual menu based on long press of the app icon ? Is it something more than this ? I'm curious as to how this will effect when you want to move app icons.
- themodelplumber 11y agoSometimes you don't want to have to worry about how long you're holding your finger down. It's much easier to control finger pressure than to guess how many seconds you have left before the screen changes fully into a new context.
- dzhiurgis 11y agoLooks like you'll have to be more precise when running, moving, etc. to prevent accidental force touches instead of taps.
- bane 11y agoit looks like it's a light touch for "peek", regular push for normal things and hard push to turn a peek into a regular push
- 0x0 11y agoIt's not a long press, because a long press will usually start the rearranging-your-app-icons operation. So this is a distinct operation. I wonder how well it will work for non-techies?
- wozniacki 11y agoYou can dump this link in VLC and still catch the tail end of the feed. http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1509pijnedfvopihbefvpijlkjb/m3u8/hls_mvp.m3u8 http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1509pijnedf... [1] [1] From a previous HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10192594 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10192594
- interpol_p 11y ago
- interlocutor 11y agoIt is not discoverable. It is a power-user feature that makes the UI less obvious for ordinary people. A lot depends on how developers use/abuse this feature. If only power-user features are hidden in the 3D-touch menu then it will be OK. But if ordinary features are only exposed via this menu then apps will become harder to use.
- Watabou 11y agoI don't think so. If the ordinary user doesn't know about it, they won't care. They'll still continue to press as normal. When they do discover it, they'll try it again to see if they like it, if they don't they'll forget about that too and continue on with regular presses.
- hnal943 11y agoOr they won't understand what happened and "discover" it randomly from now on.
- dreamfactory2 11y agoJust like the watch. I may be stupid but I really don't like that the watch makes me feel like I definitely am when I can never find or repeat anything on it. It's a really lousy feat of experience design
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tsunamifury 11y agoIts interesting to see Apple re-introduce 'modes' something that Jobs himself hated. Things like right clicking, force/3D touching, or stylus's are specific modes that need to be activated and de-activated discreetly -- showing a separate set of otherwise non-discoverable features.
- Tloewald 11y agoYou're confusing modes with discoverability. Force touch isn't a mode but it is invisible if you don't know it's there. Jobs wanted discoverable, modeless user interfaces where possible (and he was right). Both the watch and force touch are horrible from a discoverability point of view.
- acqq 11y agoI haven't tried it but it appears that you'll now always be able to touch "too much" or too little, which sounds scary, as I'm afraid you would know that you overdid it only after the fact. I doubt the motion feedback can prevent that, but I don't exclude the possibility that they solved it to be "acceptable" enough. My impression based on demos, without trying is, the unintutivity increased.
- Tloewald 11y agoHave you actually used it? On the Macbook, Force Touch is totally intuitive -- it's like using a normal trackpad. It's actually quite eery. So I don't think "touching too much" is going to be an issue, any more than accidentally clicking a trackpad. It will probably be _very_ natural for things like text selection (which is a constant PITA in touch UIs).
- kelseydh 11y agoDitto on Force Touch for text selection. That's a huge improvement if done well.
- bad_user 11y ago
- Karunamon 11y agoWould someone explain to me why there's so much hate towards the base model? I really, truly don't understand what's wrong with offering an entry level device? I carry a 16GB 6+ and am quite happy with it.
- wehadfun 11y agoIts easy to blow through 16GB when you take 12MP live pictures of every cute thing your cat does. Removing pictures off of iPhone is way harder than it should be.
- uptown 11y agoI've found another "invisible" consumer of space tends to be iMessage threads. If you exchange photos or videos and never clear out those threads it can consume your entire phones spare space pretty easily. The only way to extract the media is to save them one by one or use a 3rd party tool to do so.
- pdeuchler 11y agoIs control over your own data dead? Even if I use all cloud services I don't see 16GB being remotely reasonable for an age of HD photos, videos, unlimited music libraries (my spotify cache takes up 6GB alone). Even androids with microSD cards only go so big. If apple is serious about this push to using iCloud storage for everything I don't see myself using their products for much longer (and I've been a fanboi forever). Problem is I don't see a good alternative.
- jandrese 11y agoIt's not dead, but it costs an extra $100 or $200.
- interpol_p 11y agoIsn't the alternative to just buy a bigger phone, which they also sell? And to handle the backups yourself, import your own photos, store them wherever you like. None of this has changed as far as I can see.
- pdeuchler 11y agoThis isn't sustainable. Photos/video/music/apps will continue to grow in size and Apple clearly isn't scaling their storage options at the same rate. I already pay out the nose for upgraded iPhone storage and continually run into limits with reasonable usage. Backups are great, but pointless for "hot" data that I, ya know, want to use on my phone (which isn't usually within the vicinity of a backup drive).
- interpol_p 11y agoRight, but I don't understand why you ask: "is control over your own data dead?" in relation to the 16 GB iPhone. Because even 128 GB is not enough for most photo libraries. The amount of control over our own data seems the same as we had before — basically dependent on how much work we want to put in managing it vs. trusting and paying for cloud storage providers.
- ohitsdom 11y agoI'm concerned about durability. Is 3D touch passive sensing, or is the screen/glass actually moving? IIRC, Force Touch physically depresses (which explains why they didn't call it Force Touch).
- interpol_p 11y agoTheir description in the keynote suggested that the micro-deformations in the glass were being detected by sensors embedded in the backlight.
- dzhiurgis 11y agoSounds a lot like the very first types of touchscreens - resistive touchscreens.
- hardtke 11y agoI suspect 3D touch will cause more cases of iPhone induced tennis elbow. Matt Bonner (San Antonio Spurs) and I are two victims. Forcing us to press harder will trigger more cases.
- feld 11y agoiCloud storage doesn't help. Trust me. /5c with 16GB and 0 free space... even with "optimize storage on phone" for photos enabled they still take up all my space I have several gigs taken up by whatsapp alone and I do not want to delete my history.