6 ms·

Force Touch is on its way out. Has been for about two generations of iPhone. There's now Haptic Touch which is nothing but a long-press with better feedback.

thom 7y ago
All this means is that instead of people accidentally discovering the obscure behaviour as they do now (and then working out how to carefully tap out of it), they'll just never find it. That's certainly less annoying to me, who has never used any of these weird popup menus, but doesn't seem a massive improvement overall.
- zapzupnz 7y ago
  > they'll just never find it Why not? People always complained about accidentally activating Force Touch when trying to long press. Long press has a precedent in iOS; 3D/Force Touch never did.
  - thom 7y ago
    I have no idea what I should be long pressing (there are no affordances that I know of other than randomly trying it) and I’ve only ever accidentally activated force touch. Perhaps I am unique.
redwall_hp 7y ago
It has the same problem: invisible, undiscoverable UI driven by seemingly random gestures. Who cares if you long press or press harder? You still can't tell it's an option unless you try it on everything.
- ta999999171 7y ago
  It's meant to be reserved for advanced features that you only want to offer to users that know how to find them. See: right click.
  - jclulow 7y ago
    I don't think right click is in the same category. For one thing, the right mouse button is prominent and next to the left one. For another, there was a pretty well established language that right clicking either did nothing (was harmless) or brought up a contextual menu of advanced actions you could then read.
    - m_mueller 7y ago
      And Apple UI designers (IMO rightfully) were against exactly these hidden context menus. You can see in the older versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers how UI was meant to work: Instead of right-click menus there was the Info button (promimently found in the shortcut list), which opened a non-modal context menu that could be placed anywhere on screen in a persistent way. This then allowed manipulating all the detail object settings with minimal mouse travel and clicks. I'd say the one thing that MS Office always did really well in comparison is the format paster. Cmd-alt-c/v just isn't as intuitive and discoverable.
      - PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
        Not always. After working for years at Apple I was told (in response to a bug report I filed about missing menu items) that Mac menus might totally change their contents if you PRESSED A MODIFIER KEY. WTF! So every Mac menu conceivably had (has?) 7 sets of contents, 6 of which are essentially secret. Idiotic.
        m_mueller 7y ago
        totally agreed there - these modifiers should go away. edit: with my post I in no way wanted to indicate that Apple's UI is the pinnacle of design - just that they IMO made the right choice at first by avoiding context menus, or at least keep them optional.
        jraph 7y ago
        Well, there is this "move to trash" menu item that turns into "really delete" on many file managers. I find it not bad. If you really need it, you will discover it. Otherwise, you can still go to the trash and really delete the file from there. It's safer than having the really delete item by default, and it's there if you need it.
- GeekyBear 7y ago
  So exactly like right clicking on items to see if a contextual menu pops up in Windows 95?
  - egeozcan 7y ago
    It's easy to discover when there are only two buttons on your mouse. If it had one and pressing strongly did something else, you'd be right.
    - stuartd 7y ago
      Originally of course there was only one mouse button, and you would ctrl-click for the context menu
      - ryanbrunner 7y ago
        Two button mice were for sure the standard on non-Macintosh PCs well before Windows was in popular usage.
        yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        And 3 wasn't rare, I think.
      - kps 7y ago
        Originally, yes, there was one¹. But three were used quite soon after.² ¹ https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/350 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/3... ² https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
    - GeekyBear 7y ago
      It's just as easy to press harder "force touch" as it is to right click. Sorry, but the Windows 95 user interface had the exact same discoverability issue.
      - 7y ago
- lyjackal 7y ago
  Sounds a lot like double click on Windows 95 to me.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
Worth noting they also disabled the feature on older hardware in iOS13 for feature parity. So even if your device can detect pressure it no longer bothers.
- simonklitj 7y ago
  Not true. Force touch works perfectly in iOS 13 on my XS. As does long pressing. It is true though that they had disabled force touch altogether in the iOS 13 beta.
  - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
    Doesn't work the same as it used to on my iPhone 7. You don't get the feedback as you force press an icon on the home screen anymore, you can tell its just the same simulated algorithm as on the new phones.

thom 7y ago

All this means is that instead of people accidentally discovering the obscure behaviour as they do now (and then working out how to carefully tap out of it), they'll just never find it. That's certainly less annoying to me, who has never used any of these weird popup menus, but doesn't seem a massive improvement overall.

zapzupnz 7y ago
> they'll just never find it Why not? People always complained about accidentally activating Force Touch when trying to long press. Long press has a precedent in iOS; 3D/Force Touch never did.
- thom 7y ago
  I have no idea what I should be long pressing (there are no affordances that I know of other than randomly trying it) and I’ve only ever accidentally activated force touch. Perhaps I am unique.

redwall_hp 7y ago

It has the same problem: invisible, undiscoverable UI driven by seemingly random gestures. Who cares if you long press or press harder? You still can't tell it's an option unless you try it on everything.

ta999999171 7y ago
It's meant to be reserved for advanced features that you only want to offer to users that know how to find them. See: right click.
- jclulow 7y ago
  I don't think right click is in the same category. For one thing, the right mouse button is prominent and next to the left one. For another, there was a pretty well established language that right clicking either did nothing (was harmless) or brought up a contextual menu of advanced actions you could then read.
  - m_mueller 7y ago
    And Apple UI designers (IMO rightfully) were against exactly these hidden context menus. You can see in the older versions of Pages/Keynote/Numbers how UI was meant to work: Instead of right-click menus there was the Info button (promimently found in the shortcut list), which opened a non-modal context menu that could be placed anywhere on screen in a persistent way. This then allowed manipulating all the detail object settings with minimal mouse travel and clicks. I'd say the one thing that MS Office always did really well in comparison is the format paster. Cmd-alt-c/v just isn't as intuitive and discoverable.
    - PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
      Not always. After working for years at Apple I was told (in response to a bug report I filed about missing menu items) that Mac menus might totally change their contents if you PRESSED A MODIFIER KEY. WTF! So every Mac menu conceivably had (has?) 7 sets of contents, 6 of which are essentially secret. Idiotic.
      - m_mueller 7y ago
        totally agreed there - these modifiers should go away. edit: with my post I in no way wanted to indicate that Apple's UI is the pinnacle of design - just that they IMO made the right choice at first by avoiding context menus, or at least keep them optional.
        jraph 7y ago
        Well, there is this "move to trash" menu item that turns into "really delete" on many file managers. I find it not bad. If you really need it, you will discover it. Otherwise, you can still go to the trash and really delete the file from there. It's safer than having the really delete item by default, and it's there if you need it.
GeekyBear 7y ago
So exactly like right clicking on items to see if a contextual menu pops up in Windows 95?
- egeozcan 7y ago
  It's easy to discover when there are only two buttons on your mouse. If it had one and pressing strongly did something else, you'd be right.
  - stuartd 7y ago
    Originally of course there was only one mouse button, and you would ctrl-click for the context menu
    - ryanbrunner 7y ago
      Two button mice were for sure the standard on non-Macintosh PCs well before Windows was in popular usage.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        And 3 wasn't rare, I think.
    - kps 7y ago
      Originally, yes, there was one¹. But three were used quite soon after.² ¹ https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/350 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/input-output/14/3... ² https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
  - GeekyBear 7y ago
    It's just as easy to press harder "force touch" as it is to right click. Sorry, but the Windows 95 user interface had the exact same discoverability issue.
    - 7y ago
lyjackal 7y ago
Sounds a lot like double click on Windows 95 to me.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago

Worth noting they also disabled the feature on older hardware in iOS13 for feature parity. So even if your device can detect pressure it no longer bothers.

simonklitj 7y ago
Not true. Force touch works perfectly in iOS 13 on my XS. As does long pressing. It is true though that they had disabled force touch altogether in the iOS 13 beta.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  Doesn't work the same as it used to on my iPhone 7. You don't get the feedback as you force press an icon on the home screen anymore, you can tell its just the same simulated algorithm as on the new phones.