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My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

technicallychallenged.substack.com

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Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#151

Post by 1ark »

philliphaydon wrote: post #123
chpmrc wrote: post #71

I've recently switched to iPhone and this thread is so comforting. My friends thought I was insane when I told them that typing on Android (Samsung or Google keyboard) is much more accurate, fast and way less prone to errors (using autocorrect) than on an iPhone. And that's not even counting swipe mode! The difference is huge.

Nothing beats the flow keyboard on the old windows phone. That was was the peak of typing on a phone. I still much prefer any keyboard over Samsungs tho. The Samsung default keyboard is the worst I’ve used.

Just checked a short video of Word Flow. Isn't it the same as Gboard or Microsoft Swiftkey?

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#152

Post by vladvasiliu »

elondaits wrote: post #146
vladvasiliu wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's usually missing from these comparisons is how long people are actually using the phone and how they handle the battery. Mine is an iPhone 7 I bought refurbished back in February 2017. This phone is likely to have seen less use than a friend of mine's phone bought at the end of 2021. It spends 95% of its life connected to a power source (even when I actively use it), so I expect the battery to last quite some t…

Being constantly charging is actually bad for the battery life. Being around 100% stresses it… so that’s why some Apple devices now try to determine how much charge is needed and keep it at 80% if possible

It does. But does it stress it more than charging to 100% then draining it to, say, 10%, then charging it again? Hence, racking up cycles at a faster rate?

I know it's anecdotal, but I mostly keep my battery-powered electronics plugged-in when possible, and their batteries tend to degrade much less over the years compared to a friend's, who tends to unplug them and charge them when needed. And the electronics in question are fairly similar: iPhones and same-gen Macbooks.

Same for my work laptop (hp) which, after 4 years, still has around 80% of its original battery life, when my colleagues', who use them much more often on battery, only last around 50% of their new condition, if they weren't changed because of swelling.

The one kind of battery among mine that seem to have shorter lives are camera batteries. Which, of course, tend to get drained more since I don't have an outlet handy when out in the woods.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#153

Post by ChrisRR »

> My guess is that people had no idea it was there

That is my issue with so many of Apple's features. Apple fans are so happy to shout "it just works. You just have to double tap, or three finger swipe or hold your mouse in the corner or press harder on the screen"

If the UI doesn't tell me about those hidden methods, then the feature doesn't exist.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#154

Post by nishs »

nishs wrote: post #91
tarsiec wrote: post #61

I still use an iPhone XS and that's one of my favorite features that it has, I use it all the time and it's a shame it's not still there, kind of holding me back from upgrading

I use an iPhone XS too. I love this feature & did not know it was 3D touch-specific.

I was wrong about the last part of my comment. It isn’t entirely 3D touch specific.

From the original post:

“Fast forward to today, the trackpad mode and selection feature technically still exist albeit in a lesser form. If you long press (aka hold down) on the spacebar of your touch screen keyboard (which works on iPad too) you can get into trackpad mode.”

Also confirmed by another commenter in this thread.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#155

Post by nishs »

nishs wrote: post #92

I didn't know this feature was 3D touch-specific. Why can't Apple make the feature activate on a regular "long press" for the other models?

follow up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32354824

so actually it works on long press right now.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#156

Post by empyrrhicist »

voqv wrote: post #122
avnigo wrote: post #36

I had a feeling this was gonna be about 3D Touch just from seeing the title. It was definitely one of my favorite features, and Force Touch isn't a drop-in replacement. With 3D Touch anywhere on the keyboard, you could apply pressure to start moving the caret (text cursor) around, but what was even more useful was being able to apply a little bit more pressure to start selecting text with incredible precision . With…

I will probably soon add an old 3D Touch iphone to my small Human Machine Interface hall of fame along with the old click wheel iPod Classic. They probably removed it because nobody was using it and they couldn't figure out how to teach people, while spending extra $ to add it into phones.

As if they put any effort whatsoever into teaching or UI discoverability these days. If there was a tutorial app I would have used it, but I have repeatedly had to use Google to find unrelated blog sites describing how to accomplish things in the iOS interface.

Cynically, it feels like they think everyone should already "just know" how the various gestures work, which is obnoxious and user hostile.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#157

Post by empyrrhicist »

jiehong wrote: post #47
avnigo wrote: post #36

I had a feeling this was gonna be about 3D Touch just from seeing the title. It was definitely one of my favorite features, and Force Touch isn't a drop-in replacement. With 3D Touch anywhere on the keyboard, you could apply pressure to start moving the caret (text cursor) around, but what was even more useful was being able to apply a little bit more pressure to start selecting text with incredible precision . With…

Oh wow, I never knew this existed. It seems the selection can only grow and on both sides, which is the main problem. If they showed the cursor with a different color than the selected text, and if they shrink and grow the selection as you move, I think it could be pretty nice: select the starting point of the selection, and select only what’s in between the original cursor and the moving one. Alas it’s more like pai…

> Oh wow, I never knew this existed.

iOS UI in a nutshell.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#158

Post by 4ggr0 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #148
4ggr0 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's usually missing from these comparisons is how long people are actually using the phone and how they handle the battery According to my phone, over the last 10 days I had an average screen time of 3h34m per day. I use it to communicate and to consume media while commuting. I charge it whenever it needs some juice, it does get to down to 10%-20% sometimes. But honestly I don't see how my usage can hurt it so m…

Letting it go down to 20% before charging it back up means the battery has to cycle, and as I understand, that's what "ages" it. And managing that is on you, it's not Apple's fault that you won't (or can't) plug it in. What can be Apple's fault is the battery going to 10% after using it for 3h, but I don't think that's the point here.

I'm sorry, but how can it be my fault for using a device until it's battery is low-ish?

> Letting it go down to 20% before charging it back up means the battery has to cycle

Apple actually says themselves, that "You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge." [1]

The iPhone 12 mini has a 2,227mAh battery. Its battery health is at 86%, so effectively I have 1915mAh. But now you're also telling me that I can't use it past 20%, which leaves me with 1530mAh, or 68% of the original capacity.

I can totally agree that with long-term usage it's up to the user to optimize their battery usage for health. But my device was at 92% battery health after not even a full year and I simply won't accept that this is on me. Especially if we consider how expensive and complicated Apple makes it to replace a battery. Apple also tells me that I can charge my battery whenever I want.

To give more insight, GPS is fully disabled 99% of the time, it runs in dark mode, auto-brightness is disabled and I usually set it to a pretty low brightness, 5G is disabled and generally I remember disabling lots of things like "double tap to wake screen", "lift phone to wake screen" etc.

[1] https://www.apple.com/batteries/why-lithium-ion/

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#160

Post by jhanschoo »

empyrrhicist wrote: post #156
voqv wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will probably soon add an old 3D Touch iphone to my small Human Machine Interface hall of fame along with the old click wheel iPod Classic. They probably removed it because nobody was using it and they couldn't figure out how to teach people, while spending extra $ to add it into phones.

As if they put any effort whatsoever into teaching or UI discoverability these days. If there was a tutorial app I would have used it, but I have repeatedly had to use Google to find unrelated blog sites describing how to accomplish things in the iOS interface. Cynically, it feels like they think everyone should already "just know" how the various gestures work, which is obnoxious and user hostile.

As I understand it 3D touch's functionality per app depended on the app author, so the discoverability problem is not that simple.
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