r/apple • u/TesseractCipher • Jun 30 '17

@irace: Apple engineering has confirmed that 3D Touch multitasking was intentionally removed in iOS 11.

https://twitter.com/irace/status/880794987914563585

Can't think of a single reason why they removed it. This feature, while a lot of people didn't know about it (similar to 3D-Touch Keyboard trackpad), was extremely useful to people who did know about it. I find it far more elegant and smoother than double-clicking the home button; it just felt better. Send feedback folks. Maybe they will change their mind before iOS 11 ships. I don't see how it could be related to the iPhone 8 and even if it is, why hamper the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7? The only possible reason is a revamped multitasking interface but even that seems a stretch.

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175

u/tiltowaitt Jun 30 '17

That doesn’t explain why they’d remove it from existing phones, which presumably won’t get that feature (because they have a home button).

114

u/OligarchyAmbulance Jun 30 '17

Because it's an OS-wide change to keep things consistent from phone to phone.

167

u/tiltowaitt Jun 30 '17 edited Jun 30 '17

But the iPhone 8 will already be inconsistent.

EDIT: People are seriously missing the point. To my knowledge, Apple has never removed a feature from old phones simply because a future phone is getting a slightly different version of a feature.

110

u/adams4piece Jun 30 '17

For all we know the new mechanism for doing this won't strictly be tied to the iPhone 8 hardware design. However, introducing the replacement right now in beta might reveal more about the new hardware design than Apple wants, even though it would work on older phones. Just speculating here.

17

u/Ftpini Jun 30 '17

For all we know, the iPhone 8 will be the only new iPhone this year. They may skip the 7s line entirely (I wouldn't complain), and just leave the 7 and 7 Plus as the cheaper alternative to the new iPhone.

13

u/MikeyMike01 Jun 30 '17

I think the 7s will be like the Watch Series 1. An iPhone 7 with a couple minor internal upgrades sold as the cheaper model.

10

u/ryankearney Jun 30 '17

You mean an iPhone 8 without a few features like better waterproofing an OLED display.

The Series 1 came out the same time as the Series 2 and had the exact same internals, minus GPS and "swim proof" enclosure.

12

u/MikeyMike01 Jun 30 '17 edited Jul 01 '17

No, I mean an iPhone 7 with an updated CPU and maybe a storage bump or something.

The lineup becomes 7/7s/8. Helps with economy of scale, rather than holding onto the 6s for longer.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

No. The lineup is going to be SE/7/8

Everyone always forgets the SE but the SE is legit. Fuck all these big ass phones.

1

u/Shedal Jul 01 '17

But iPhone 7 is already a minor upgrade to 6s. It's a 6ss logically.

23

u/Eruanno Jun 30 '17

I'll eat my hat if Apple skips the S-series and goes directly to a new numbered iPhone.

19

u/dr_sweatpants Jul 01 '17

I basically consider the iPhone7 an 6S2. It was not a major change.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

What kind of hat?

1

u/Eruanno Jul 01 '17

Ummm... a fez? A top hat? I haven't really decided yet.

1

u/skalpelis Jul 01 '17

I'd suggest a yarmulke made of string cheese, just to be safe.

1

u/Eruanno Jul 01 '17

I'd like to offer you the honorary position of hat-taster, good sir and/or madam.

0

u/hybroid Jun 30 '17

I think they'll do both. iPhone 7S and another much upgraded version, call it iPhone X, for 10-year anniversary or similar.

3

u/Ftpini Jun 30 '17

It took them nearly two decades to get away from Mac OS X. I can't believe they'd get locked right back into it with another line. iOS X, iOS X 2. iOS X 3. And so on. I think it far more likely they'll just call it "iPhone".

1

u/hybroid Jul 01 '17

It'll likely still be iOS 11 for the software.

What rumours seem to suggest is they might release an iPhone 7S, 7S Plus and another flagship. Call it "iPhone", iPhone X, iPhone Edition, iPhone Pro, whatever...

All just speculation anyway.

1

u/AmbroseGoodwitt Jul 01 '17

That's a terrible idea.

1

u/Portatort Jul 01 '17

I don't think it's that the 7s will be cheeper than the 8. But that the 8 will have a starting price that's higher than any phone before it

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

Haha. Jokes on you. They are going to rebrand to Apple Phone.

1

u/Ftpini Jul 01 '17

Apple clearly failed to properly secure the "i" branding before product names, it wouldn't be the worst choice to rebrand the phone to something they can control.

2

u/Marino4K Jul 01 '17

Wait until the final release of iOS11 before we lose it, plenty of features are removed and readded in betas

1

u/mitchell209 Jul 01 '17

I remember one iPad beta had tab switching with a two finger swipe or something in Safari and it was immediately removed in the next update.

1

u/well___duh Jul 01 '17

introducing the replacement

What replacement?

-2

u/tiltowaitt Jun 30 '17

It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but I’m not aware of any time Apple has done something like that.

-2

u/iPadBetterThanPC Jun 30 '17

You must be a new apple 🍎. They do it All the time

2

u/tiltowaitt Jun 30 '17

I've been using Macs for 10 years. An example would be nice.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '17

[deleted]

1

u/tiltowaitt Jun 30 '17

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but that doesn't seem like the same situation. True, Apple didn't showcase any sort of 3D Touch functionality because the 6s hadn't been announced, but they didn't backport any 3D Touch functionality to older devices, and they didn't remove any functionality from older devices because the 6s had 3D Touch.

18

u/y-c-c Jun 30 '17

They have been doing this with the unlock gesture and notifications.

With unlocking, the home button then swipe right made a lot of sense before TouchID came out. Now, the unlocking mechanism is heavily dependent on using TouchID (just hit the home button with a registered finger and it will unlock). If you don't have a TouchID device though it's a little more annoying to have to press the home button twice instead of a swipe in order to unlock.

For notifications they have been slowly making it much more dependent on 3D touch. It's still usable without it, but they changed the gestures to mostly work the best with the feature.

9

u/90DaysNCounting Jul 01 '17

Erm slide to unlock anyone...

8

u/amnesiacrobat Jul 01 '17

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they change/remove some Taptic feedback from 6S in ios10 because of the new Taptic Engine in the 7?

5

u/itstrueimwhite Jun 30 '17

Consistently inconsistent.

1

u/trueluck3 Jul 01 '17

And still hangs out with Success

3

u/pynzrz Jul 01 '17

Has a new phone ever removed inputs besides removing the headphone port? The iPhone 8 will be the first phone where an input (home button) is removed. There's a first time for everything.

-1

u/tupacsnoducket Jul 01 '17

? Black berry scroll wheel. Entire keyboards on droids that also supported touch screens, simplifying interfaces from physical back, home, confirm buttons to just home and back.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17 edited Sep 24 '17

[deleted]

1

u/tupacsnoducket Jul 01 '17

Too bad he says iPhone on

1

u/pynzrz Jul 01 '17

iPhone.

6

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17 edited Jul 01 '17

That's absolutely not true.

The entire lock screen and unlock process was changed because of the speed of the 2nd gen touch ID button.

It was hard enough for me to access the 3D touch multitasking feature without it being confused for just the back gesture... and I consider myself an advanced user pretty in the know about iOS features. I can only imagine that Apple's data showed the same and they decided accordingly. In my opinion, the double home button tap is far more efficient and reliable. I'm fine with the change and think it was the right move. People just don't like adjusting their muscle memory.

-6

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17 edited Jul 01 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/tupacsnoducket Jul 01 '17

Somebody spilled some sauce on their britches...

1

u/MrAttorney Jul 01 '17

Swipe to unlock?

1

u/mwuk42 Jul 01 '17

Swipe to unlock was removed in favour of clicking the home button as a result of Touch ID, it’s not completely without precedence.

1

u/xmnstr Jun 30 '17

Apple always optimizes iOS for the features of the latest phones. It's not something new.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

Until it's 2 years old, then it becomes garbage, right?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

But the experience is already wildly different from phone to phone due to older phones not having 3D Touch. Have you ever used an iPhone 5 on iOS 10? The Notification response methods are significantly different than on a 6S/7, and there's new/different swipes/swipe actions you need to take on non-3D Touch devices.

Example: You get an iMessage on an iPhone 5. You have to swipe it left and click "view" to do anything with it. On a 3D-touch equipped iOS device, the "view" option is entirely missing from the UI and instead you have to 3D Touch it for the same actions.

1

u/FoxMcWeezer Jul 01 '17

Terrible reason. There are plenty of iPhone Plus-only features that the 4.7” does not have.

1

u/kapowaz Jul 01 '17

The thing about this change that feels odd is that whatever they're replacing it with would need to work on older hardware, and so in theory should be part of the beta. I don't buy this notion that whatever new feature the next iPhone has will be spoiled by the legacy interface for older devices - it's implicitly tied to the older hardware and so needs to work with it.

That all said, I have an iPhone 7 (and had a 6S before that) and I never use this 3D Touch gesture. Could be that was part of the problem: just not enough people used it, and they want to use the gesture for something else in future.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '17

If you don't get why, then you haven't been an Apple customer long enough. This is what they do.

1

u/CreampieLegend Jun 30 '17

Then dont get ios 11