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I used 3D Touch all the time for one specific feature: if you did a 3D Touch on the keyboard it would turn into a touch pad for moving the cursor around a block

I used 3D Touch all the time for one specific feature: if you did a 3D Touch on the keyboard it would turn into a touch pad for moving the cursor around a block of text. For anyone else who was devastated to lose this feature, I was happy to learn it’s still there! Now you do a long tap on the space bar to activate it.

Shank 7y ago
> I was happy to learn it’s still there! Now you do a long tap on the space bar to activate it. It's not though. The feature implemented with haptic touch only lets you long press on space bar and move the cursor. You have to use a second finger to start selection and control the bounds, and it's far less accurate. With 3D touch, you could press down once to start cursor mode, again to start selection, and again to stop. You could also reset the selection while staying in cursor mode. I was able to, quite frequently, change entire sentences and edit text really efficiently with a single hand holding the phone. That's impossible now. I'd be really happy if Apple went back and improved the spacebar cursor system, but right now it's objectively worse as it requires two fingers rather than one to select text.
- manaskarekar 7y ago
  Also, 3D Touch was almost instantaneous, "haptic touch" introduces a lag.
- mstade 7y ago
  Add one datapoint to the discoverability argument made in the article: I have had 3D Touch enabled iphones for a long time now and had absolutely no idea that the feature you're describing existed. I just tried the new long tap version of this feature on my iPhone 11 pro and it's just as you say kind of awkward because of the multi touch requirement to select, I can definitely see how 3D Touch would've made this better. Now I wonder what other actually useful 3D Touch features I missed because I never discovered them. The only ones I did find where pretty useless and more often than not just got in the way, e.g. rearranging home screen icons.
- pault 7y ago
  That is awesome, and despite using cursor mode for years I never knew that you could make selections too, which I guess illustrates the dichotomy of 3D touch UX. :)
nothrabannosir 7y ago
Another useful feature: force touch swipe the entire screen with your finger from left to right is a poor man’s Alt+Tab (switch to last process). Very useful when switching back and forth to check / copy something. Less faff than home button double click and tap.
- baddox 7y ago
  FWIW, all the new iPhones from last year’s and this year’s generation have no home button and allow you to swipe between apps at the bottom of the screen (without 3D Touch). It’s a very nice UI paradigm.
retSava 7y ago
On android, using the google keyboard, you can swipe on the space key to move the cursor. You can also long hold on the backspace key, then swipe left to delete whole words. Similar to ctrl+backspace on windows. May need to go to settings to enable these features IIRC.

Shank 7y ago

> I was happy to learn it’s still there! Now you do a long tap on the space bar to activate it. It's not though. The feature implemented with haptic touch only lets you long press on space bar and move the cursor. You have to use a second finger to start selection and control the bounds, and it's far less accurate. With 3D touch, you could press down once to start cursor mode, again to start selection, and again to stop. You could also reset the selection while staying in cursor mode. I was able to, quite frequently, change entire sentences and edit text really efficiently with a single hand holding the phone. That's impossible now. I'd be really happy if Apple went back and improved the spacebar cursor system, but right now it's objectively worse as it requires two fingers rather than one to select text.

manaskarekar 7y ago
Also, 3D Touch was almost instantaneous, "haptic touch" introduces a lag.
mstade 7y ago
Add one datapoint to the discoverability argument made in the article: I have had 3D Touch enabled iphones for a long time now and had absolutely no idea that the feature you're describing existed. I just tried the new long tap version of this feature on my iPhone 11 pro and it's just as you say kind of awkward because of the multi touch requirement to select, I can definitely see how 3D Touch would've made this better. Now I wonder what other actually useful 3D Touch features I missed because I never discovered them. The only ones I did find where pretty useless and more often than not just got in the way, e.g. rearranging home screen icons.
pault 7y ago
That is awesome, and despite using cursor mode for years I never knew that you could make selections too, which I guess illustrates the dichotomy of 3D touch UX. :)

nothrabannosir 7y ago

Another useful feature: force touch swipe the entire screen with your finger from left to right is a poor man’s Alt+Tab (switch to last process). Very useful when switching back and forth to check / copy something. Less faff than home button double click and tap.

baddox 7y ago
FWIW, all the new iPhones from last year’s and this year’s generation have no home button and allow you to swipe between apps at the bottom of the screen (without 3D Touch). It’s a very nice UI paradigm.

retSava 7y ago

On android, using the google keyboard, you can swipe on the space key to move the cursor. You can also long hold on the backspace key, then swipe left to delete whole words. Similar to ctrl+backspace on windows. May need to go to settings to enable these features IIRC.