JUNE 2019 MACWORLD 43touch is, because even though Apple has
had this technology on iPhones, Mac
trackpads, and Apple Watches for years,
the general public doesn’t know seem to
know what it is.
Half of the time I show someone how
to use it, they express surprise that their
phone even has had this feature all along,
but they never make 3D touch a part of
their regular habitual iPhone use. The
other half the time, I’m explaining to
someone who wonders why their iPhone
is acting funny that they have accidentally
triggered the 3D touch feature they didn’t
know they had.
It’s a feature that holds little enough
value to consumers that, even though it’s
absence from the iPhone XR has gone
almost entirely unnoticed by the public.
Maybe it’s time to let 3D touch go
entirely, reducing cost and complexity, and
instead build interface
shortcuts that are a little
more intuitive and
discoverable.LEAN INTO THE
AFFORDABLE
MODEL
Compared to Apple’s
strategy in 2017, where
the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
looked and felt like a “last
year” model compared to
the fancy new iPhone X, Apple flipped the
script in 2018. The iPhone XR feels like a
true sibling of the iPhone XS, with all the
features and quality that users really care
about, including a future-forward design.
Maybe Apple should lean into that,
making its least expensive new model not
only the expected best-seller, but the
“flagship” iPhone. Maybe, and this is a
wild idea, Apple should abandon its
two-iPhone-lines strategy in favor of a
single iPhone, in two sizes, starting under
$800, with all the features that truly
matter (cameras!) and none of the ones
that really don’t (3D touch). Apple could
follow the Apple Watch model, and
address the premium end of the market
with superficial changes like ceramic
cases, or changes that reflect personal
desires rather than product quality (like
size or amount of storage). ■Maybe if your LCD is really good, the general public can’t really
tell it’s not an expensive OLED. At least, not in a smartphone.