POPSUGAR

This Might Be the Greatest New Feature From Apple

Sep 25 2015 - 9:35am

When Apple showed off its two newest products, the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus [1], it failed to fully explain what may be the best feature on them — 3D Touch. You might think it's similar to Force Touch on the Apple Watch and latest line of MacBooks [2], but it's actually the next step in Apple's Taptic Engine technology.

Currently, Force Touch [3] can understand how hard you press and lets you do new actions on your computer or watch. It also provides haptic feedback, which means you get a little vibration from the watch or computer so you know that you're completing an action. It's definitely a great way of interacting with technology and letting you do fewer actions to complete a task.

This is why 3D Touch is even more exciting as technology continues to make our lives easier. The new 3D Touch takes Force Touch and makes it even more sensitive to understanding different levels of pressure. Learn more about what it is, how it will change your smartphone experience, and why you should be excited about it ahead!

With 3D Touch, you can now quickly "peek."

"Peek" is essentially previewing a link or information without going directly to the app or webpage itself. If you get a link in a text, you can press on it and see what awaits you.

But you can also press deeper to "pop" into an app.

When you're using "peek," you can just apply more pressure and you'll "pop" into the full version of the app. So if you're looking at a link, it'll then take you into Safari without having you do anything else.

Here's another way 3D Touch works with email.

3D Touch works across a variety of apps, such as Mail, where you can quickly preview — or "peek" — an email and it'll remain unread so you don't miss it.

3D Touch creates new shortcuts on the iPhone.

If you press on any app, a variety of shortcuts will appear. In this example, tapping the Phone app gives you options on people to call.

It works with Live Photos too.

Live Photos [4], which captures an extended moment of a photograph and plays it, works with 3D Touch. You need to press down in order for the photo to move.

Watch a full explanation from Apple on how 3D Touch works.

It's only a few weeks till you can test it out for yourself!


Source URL
https://www.popsugar.com/tech/What-3D-Touch-38366713