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

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

#301

Post by mixmastamyk »

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…

Neat, knew about the 3d caret placement for years but not the selection part. It doesn't seem to be incredible precision however, on mine you can only add one word at a time to the end of the selection.

Better than I knew before, but not incredible. Would at least require letter by letter precision for that.

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

#302

Post by ptero »

idiotsecant wrote: post #281
NikolaNovak wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree, but also... NOTHING about modern phones is "intuitive". Every time I have to introduce a modern phone to a 70yo+ family member, I come to that realization promptly. Swipe from bottom to switch programs? Swipe from top left and top right to get different (IMPORTANT!) panels? Why are three lines a "Menu"? But sometimes it's dots, or a gear icon, and they're never in the same place. On iPhone, there's no…

I'm not sure there is such a thing as an 'intuitive' interface beyond those where the physical action of the control is visible and obvious (turning the wheel rotates the gear that raises the gate type interface) I think just about everything else requires context, which is just a fancy way of saying that someone taught them how it worked at some point or they played with it long enough to guess their way to enough b…

Intuitive might not be the perfect term; clear, unambiguous, predictable behavior might describe it better. There was a lot of research into such interfaces and improving functionality decades ago. But when users stopped being the customers it was quickly discarded.

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

#304

Post by meatmanek »

eddd-ddde wrote: post #268
xt00 wrote: post #209

Maybe I’m in the minority here but I really did not like the feature and many people I tried to explain the feature to were confused that it existed.. “no no don’t tap the screen, you need to PUSH on the screen to make it do the action”.. and I would get a look like “huh?? Push on the screen? Why what’s that gonna do..” people saying pushing hard on the screen is intuitive seemed to live in a different bubble of peop…

I remember when they shipped me a mac book pro for work, I literally was unable to click on stuff, I had to ask in a discord server for help until someone mentioned pushing, turns out you don't tap to click, you push, which was so weird at first. Eventually however, the track pad was the one thing I really enjoyed about using an apple product.

You can absolutely tap to click on a Mac trackpad. I don't know what the default is, but this behavior is configurable in system preferences.

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

#305

Post by NonNefarious »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #293

Long touch/force touch etc are all terrible for anyone who has lost fine motor control in their hands. I guess because the people who design these interface are all young and dexterous they don't realize a single tap can take over a second, and modulating the amount of pressure on the screen can be impossible.

They're also a dereliction of the job of DESIGN. These are a lazy, undiscoverable, and ineffective attempt to avoid doing the necessary work to make a GUI: a GRAPHICAL user interface.

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

#306

Post by nsxwolf »

andnand wrote: post #215
nsxwolf wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even realize this is why the feature didn't work anymore. I thought I was doing something wrong. It's terrible. I find text selection and cursor placement on the iPhone to be infuriatingly difficult. The trackpad feature made it sooo easy. It was world class. Now it is just... gone? With no alternative?

You just have to hold down on the spacebar and the trackpad will show up.

Wow, thanks! Not as good as it was, but not bad.

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

#307

Post by olyjohn »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #293

Long touch/force touch etc are all terrible for anyone who has lost fine motor control in their hands. I guess because the people who design these interface are all young and dexterous they don't realize a single tap can take over a second, and modulating the amount of pressure on the screen can be impossible.

Accessibility is never a priority in the software world.

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

#308

Post by conradev »

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.

Features like that not only add cost, but also take away from available volume for other features

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

#309

Post by boopmaster »

nottorp wrote: post #189
dan-robertson wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the feature got more confusing as Apple started to phase it out. They dropped the feature where you could force-touch to select text (on e.g. a web page rather than typing) and press harder again to select eg sentences/paragraphs. They also made force touch and long press do the same thing in many cases. I think about the only place it works well is in the keyboard but sadly there are now a bunch of bugs ther…

The one thing I remember was buying the phone when the model was like 6 months since launch, pressing on an app icon on the desktop and randomly getting either the 'move the apps' state or the context menu with apparently no logic to it. And nothing's changed since then. Sorry. It's too confusing.

but what you are describing here exists on newer models as well, sans force touch.. long press.
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