3D Touch and Live Photos: Gimmicks or Useful?

Sad Professor

I’d be interested to hear how 6s users are getting on with the 6s’s two biggest new features.

I have mixed feelings about them both. I still think 3D Touch is a potentially big innovation, but it’s being being held back the fact that it can’t do anything essential because not all iOS devices have it yet. The best implementation of it I’ve encountered is the keyboard trackpad, while the worst is probably the switch to multitasking view.

Peek & Pop are clever and well designed, but the effort required to activate them (even with the sensitivity set to light) often isn’t worth the time it would take to simply tap on something and back-swipe if I change my mind. Also, the way 3D Touch works on the home screen (basically as a contextual menu) is inconsistent with the Peek & Pop implementation used elsewhere. It’s like Peek & Pop and Tap & Hold are reversed depending on how important they are.

Live Photos meanwhile just seems like a complete waste of time unless you take pictures with your phone on a tripod.

Zcott

You're right about 3D Touch. I've been trying to 3D Touch my iPad to save pictures and peek at the calendar from emails. It's good. Having said that, I never use pop for anything.

Live Photos are kinda fun to look back on but I haven't set them as home screen background.

Zapp Brannigan

Live photos is a total gimmick. But I do like 3D Touch, I actually love the multitasking gesture. One more step towards removing the home button.

Sad Professor

Zapp Brannigan wrote: »

Live photos is a total gimmick. But I do like 3D Touch, I actually love the multitasking gesture. One more step towards removing the home button.

Do you not find the multitasking gesture difficult to activate?

Oafley Jones

Only been using the 6s plus since yesterday so....

Live photos: didn't care for it on my HTCs and won't be using it here.

The whole 3d touch is a bit odd. This is a company that didn't have right click on its computers for years and here we are we contextual menus on both their watch and phone. It seems a bit muddy in its implementation. The whole "wiggle" state really needs to be changed now. Was there really a need for the haptic engine? It's nice way of confirming a press but I'm sure they could have done the whole 3d touch thing without it and used the long key press instead.

Best feature. Not having the last phones crippling amount of ram.

awec

Don't use either.

Live Photos were on Windows Phones years ago and nobody used them, I suspect nobody will use them on iOS either.

3D touch is a cool idea but there are not enough good applications of it yet. In this case it seems Apple have done it backward, they have added a screen that can measure push intensity and then tried to figure out how they can put that into their UX rather than the other way around.

The multi task gesture is annoying on a 6s+ because the phone is a bit too big to do it with one hand for right handed people due to the force required. It would be a lot better if you could configure the side of the screen that you have to push on. At the moment double tapping Home is much quicker and easier.

Doodah7

Have never used Live Photos. It was switched off by default on my phone and I have left it that way.

3D Touch can be useful at times, particularly the camera app but is hamstrung by too few apps using it effectively yet. Saying that, I didn't know (and still don't!) about the multitasking gesture?

Creamy Goodness

3D Touch is a life saver for entering text.

Light touch on the software keyboard to move the cursor, firmer touch to start selecting text.

Live Photos meh, it's something that I'll use but it's purely a "slo-mo" feature, what I mean by that is it's not groundbreaking, I won't use it every day but for some scenarios it'll be cool (just like slo-mo 240fps). I'd imagine Live Photos would be better if I had kids who tend to do a lot of cute/annoying/funny things before you have the time to hit the shutter button.

Sad Professor

Oafley Jones wrote: »

The whole 3d touch is a bit odd. This is a company that didn't have right click on its computers for years and here we are we contextual menus on both their watch and phone. It seems a bit muddy in its implementation.

Contextual menus via control-click and third party mice has been around since Mac OS 8, though. Apple was never opposed to right-clicking, just to the complexity that a second button on a mouse presented to novice users. Once they found a way to hide that complexity and disable it by default, they happily started shipping multi-button mice.

Now that I think about it, Peek and Pop and Quick Action in iOS follow the same pattern. They aren't essential to operate the phone and they are hidden. You could easily use an iOS device without ever having to evoke Quick Actions or arguably even tap and hold. And I guess that's the point.

awec

tallpaul wrote: »

Have never used Live Photos. It was switched off by default on my phone and I have left it that way.

3D Touch can be useful at times, particularly the camera app but is hamstrung by too few apps using it effectively yet. Saying that, I didn't know (and still don't!) about the multitasking gesture?

Press firmly on the very left edge of the screen and then swipe right and it does the same as double tapping the home button.

The problem with it is that it is an awkward gesture for the 6s+ unless you do it two handed or are left handed. It is way easier to just use the home button.

Zapp Brannigan

Sad Professor wrote: »

Do you not find the multitasking gesture difficult to activate?

Not particularly. I have my sensitivity set on low, I just press a little on the left side and then swipe my thumb across the screen.

Zcott

Zapp Brannigan wrote: »

Not particularly. I have my sensitivity set on low, I just press a little on the left side and then swipe my thumb across the screen.

On normal sensitivity it's really awkward. I tried it a few times and haven't done it since.