3D Touch has been available on iPhones since 2015, and makes operating iOS a bit easier. In this guide you can read everything you need to know about the pressure-sensitive controls.
3D Touch: the right mouse click of your iPhone
Apple introduced 3D Touch on the iPhone 6S, and almost all iPhones after that have the feature as standard. The 2015 iPhone SE does not support 3D Touch, and the iPhone XR features a similar technology: Haptic Touch.
→ Read also: Explanation: the difference between 3D Touch and Haptic Touch
The technology is located in an extra layer under the screen, which contains 96 sensors that measure the distance between the glass and the backlight. This way your iPhone knows where you place your finger and how much pressure it exerts. In the meantime, Apple has expanded 3D Touch quite a bit and there are quite a few options. You should know all this about 3D Touch.
- In what ways can you use 3D Touch?
- This is how you use 3D Touch on your home screen
- Using 3D Touch in apps
- Using the Control Panel with 3D Touch
1. In what ways can you use 3D Touch?
There are three ways of applying pressure through which you can use 3D Touch: so-called Quick actions, Peek and Pop. Quick actions – as the name implies – stands for quick actions. Thanks to 3D Touch, you then have to perform fewer steps for certain actions.
For example, by pressing an app icon harder, you can quickly send a message, make a note or open a specific menu via a shortcut menu that appears. For example, if you use 3D Touch with the Camera app, you can easily choose whether you want to take a selfie, video or photo or scan a qr code. However, quick actions also work with contacts or in apps themselves such as Safari.
The options Peek and Pop have a lot to do with each other, but each has its own effect. By pressing softly you use Peek, and you can preview in different apps without opening the entire file. This is useful in Safari, Messages or Mail, among others. When you let go, the preview closes automatically.
If you press harder, your iPhone will activate the Pop function. As a result, the email, website or message that you see as a preview opens completely. So by combining these functions, you can quickly go through all your messages or emails, and only open things that are worthwhile using Pop.
2. This is how you use 3D Touch on your home screen
On your home screen, you can mainly get started with quick actions. All standard apps from Apple support 3D Touch, but now the function also works with a large number of third-party apps.
In addition to Notes, you can also operate apps such as WhatsApp, Netflix or Flitsmeister in this way. Do you use folders to categorize your apps? By pressing hard on a folder you can quickly rename it.
It is also handy that you can quickly view the content of notifications by pressing them. This now also works with WhatsApp notifications, so that you can easily check images that you receive, for example.
3. Using 3D Touch in apps
The Peek and Pop options mainly offer a solution in apps themselves. You will hardly find the popup menus that expand in apps. On the other hand, check emails, WhatsApp chats, messages, websites, photos and more via a preview. Keep pressing the screen to leave the preview open. Because you can then open it completely by simply pressing a little harder on the screen, it is an addictive function.
If you’ve been using it for a while, you’ll find it’s a quick way to go through notifications. These functions also work in more and more apps from third-party developers. To find out which apps on your iPhone are all of that, it is a matter of trying. If nothing happens, you know that that app or action doesn’t support 3D Touch.
4. Using the Control Panel with 3D Touch
The Control Panel is already a handy collection of functions that you can quickly toggle on or off, but 3D Touch brings some extra sophistication to this. Because instead of turning your flashlight on or off, you can also determine its brightness by pressing it hard in the Control Panel.
That way you can also determine the brightness of your screen more precisely, or select functions such as True Tone and Night Shift. In addition, you can expand the menu in which you can arrange things such as WiFi, bluetooth and internet connection. By pressing this you can also quickly set AirDrop, or turn your personal hotspot on or off.
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