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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

#251

Post by the_gipsy »

flappyeagle wrote: post #244
failTide wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so I'm relatively anti-phone and have been for a while. There was a period of time where I didn't have a smartphone for a few years. When I started using an iPhone again, I realized I couldn't figure out how the heck to delete apps. It was kind of infuriating. I eventually had to look it up online, but the answer wasn't the top one. After reading enough answers I realized the 3d touch was the reason, and that I was t…

You never needed to Force Touch an icon to delete. It has been long press since the first iPhone. But your confusion is an example of the main problem. It’s hard to discover and easily confused with long press (if you try to Force Touch and don’t apply enough pressure eventually you’re going to leave your finger there long enough to activate long press)

Or they never got a long push because they pressed slightly too hard.

Happened to me.

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

#252

Post by happyopossum »

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.

> If there was a tutorial app I would have used it

There is/was - it's called Tips, and most people ignore or uninstall it.

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

#253

Post by happyopossum »

IncandescentGas wrote: post #23

I wonder if reliability was a factor in ending this feature. 3D touch malfunctions badly with a slightly swelling battery pressing against the lcd backplate inside the phone. Or a bend in the phone chassis. The 6s case was bent for every person who carried it in their back pocket. I saw malfunctioning 3d touch several times every week back when I was in phone repair. Especially with carrier insurance refurbs, where t…

> The 6s case was bent for every person who carried it in their back pocket

Baloney - it was the 6 Plus, not the 6S, and it was far more rare than twitter would have had you believe.

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

#254

Post by NegativeLatency »

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…

> it's an absolute mess to use

No kidding I just managed to make it bug out and crash safari

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

#255

Post by drclau »

glhaynes wrote: post #237
drclau wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially liked it, but gradually grew to dislike it. Having to press hard on the screen of a hand-held device that would be quite expensive to repair if dropped is just not a good idea. I ended up reducing the force setting to the minimum, and still felt it wasn't practical.

I don't think it was likely to damage the display (though, yeah, it feels iffy), but there's just something about having to exert force when you're used to lightly tapping that just feels … burdensome. No less burdensome than its tap-and-hold replacement, so, I don't miss it.

I want to clarify, I was not saying the finger pushing on the screen can damage the display, but rather that doing so increases the risk of dropping an already thin and slippery device.

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

#256

Post by happyopossum »

joshstrange wrote: post #212

Something related that drives me batty is you can't long press notifications on the iPad. Like let's say you get a Reminders notification and you want to snooze it for 1 hour (don't get me started on how stupidly limited your snooze options are or the many other failings of Reminders). On the phone you just press and hold (used to be 3D touch) and the context menu comes up but this doesn't work on the iPad for no goo…

> Neither device has 3D touch anymore

The iPad never had 3D Touch.

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

#257

Post by philliphaydon »

1ark wrote: post #151
philliphaydon wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't know why, but with Word Flow you could train it, teach it words, including swear words.

GBoard / Swiftkey does its darnest to ensure that it will never select a swear word and always pick 'duck' but give me an option for 'fuck'.

Flow you didn't need to be accurate, you could be 'close enough' and it figured out the word you wanted based on what you were writing. GBoard/Swiftkey get it wrong more often than I like.

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

#258

Post by NikolaNovak »

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 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 real unified "Back" button - chase it down from application to application with different context and result every time. On Android, unified buttons (including reliable and predictable "back") exist but their location and icons are not intuitive either.

I also encountered opposite problem than described - when I tell people to hold-press, they exert force. It's a natural, intuitive thing for most of them - they're trying to press hard. But the mere notion you need to hold-press anything? Completely unintuitive. Like everything else on a modern phone :-/

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

#259

Post by skoskie »

scoot wrote: post #245
skoskie wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's speed sensitive. I just tested in the notes app and was able to move down 6 lines moving slowly or 10 lines moving quickly.

You must have a device with 3D touch. That's physically impossible with a new iPhone using the space bar.

No, it's a new iPhone 13 Pro.

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

#260

Post by pessimizer »

MasterScrat wrote: post #249
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…

Interesting how this comment simply summarizes the post, adding no extra information. There's probably a way to make a lot of HN points just running a summarization model and posting the result as comment

You could probably run something over the output summary to make it sound like commentary. A filter to make the comment seem "unsure" about the conclusions of the article, or one to make it express gratitude that the article was written.
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