Haptic Touch
Apple’s giving you good vibrations
Carrie Marshall
Remember 3D Touch, Apple’s technology for iPhone screens?
It’s gone, replaced by a technology Apple calls Haptic Touch. The results feel very similar, but the two technologies are very different.
3D Touch vs Haptic Touch: what’s the difference?
Apple introduced 3D Touch in the iPhone 6S in 2015, and the technology was used across the iPhone range up to and including the iPhone X, iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The idea behind 3D Touch was to make additional options available to you if you pressed harder on your phone’s screen.
3D Touch is a pressure-sensing technology that can tell not just where your finger is but how hard you’re pressing. It works by including a layer of sensors in the iPhone’s display that measure pressure.
Apple’s apps make good use of Haptic Touch. In Mail, long-pressing a message brings up a useful options menu.
That made some interesting things possible, so for example if you did a normal press on an icon it would open the app, but if you pressed down harder you might get a context-sensitive menu instead. It worked rather like a right-click on a mouse.