Force touch in iOS

[The Doctor11]

In the latest Accidentally Tech Podcast they talked about what force touch could do in iOS. This really really got me thinking. So I've put quite a bit of effort into thinking of stock iOS force touches that would actually be useful. Here's my list so far.

- Delete app prompt instantly
- Delete emails instantly (not really that helpful though )
- Book mark page instantly
- Clear all notifications button
-Close all apps multitasking

What do you guys think would actually be helpful?

 

[Cpt. Gilgamesh]

I could see it being helpful for things I'd need to long-press for. Like saving photos or opening tabs. If I could open a tab in the background just by force-pressing, that would be awesome.

 

[Andres Cantu]

In the latest Accidentally Tech Podcast they talked about what force touch could do in iOS. This really really got me thinking. So I've put quite a bit of effort into thinking of stock iOS force touches that would actually be useful. Here's my list so far.

- Delete all prompt instantly
- Delete emails instantly (not really that helpful though )
- Book mark page instantly
- Clear all notifications button
-Close all apps multitasking

What do you guys think would actually be helpful?

Yes please to the "clear all notifications button" and "close all apps multitasking" lol

How about force touch to zoom in camera? That would be even cooler if the iPhone ever gets optical-zooming.

 

[Andres Cantu]

I could see it being helpful for things I'd need to long-press for. Like saving photos or opening tabs. If I could open a tab in the background just by force-pressing, that would be awesome.

That would be awesome! I hate how it's done now since I use it all the time.

 

[The Doctor11]

I could see it being helpful for things I'd need to long-press for. Like saving photos or opening tabs. If I could open a tab in the background just by force-pressing, that would be awesome.

Those are good ones! Force tough to open in a new tab would be very helpful!

 

[HopefulHumanist]

There are many possibilities but some may hinge on how Apple implements force touch on the phones. On the watch, a force touch anywhere on the screen opens up a menu. On MacBooks, force touch on specific locations have specific functions.

On the phone, I can really see them going either way. You could have force touch in mail bring up options like flag, archive, mark as unread, reply, label, etc. Or you can have it open up a small maps window when you force touch on an address or save an appointment to calendar when viewing that information in an email. I'm very curious to see which direction they go in. They might even mix the two depending on context/app.

 

[nj-morris]

I started a thread once, but all I got were irrelevant responses. But here is what I put.

-FT on home screen apps to show app settings
-FT on text in Safari and iBooks to define
-FT on links to preview (iPad)
-FT on text to highlight (press harder to highlight sentence, paragraph and whole text)
-FT on fast forward and rewind to do so faster
-FT on email to flag
-Any FT trackpad tricks that can be implemented
-FT API

I think they should learn from the Force Touch Trackpad on the new MacBook and the MacBook Pro, like defining words and stuff. I think this has lots of potential, and it will be something that people actually use, unlike Siri

 

[soupcan]

If they plan for Force Touch support in iOS 9 they won't show it at WWDC. No iDevices have Force Touch capabilities yet, and it would be strange to introduce a feature that doesn't have any devices supporting it (yet).

It would make more sense for Apple to introduce an iDevice with Force Touch hardware and then talk about the things you can do with it in software on the same event.

 

[Andres Cantu]

I started a thread once, but all I got were irrelevant responses. But here is what I put.



I think they should learn from the Force Touch Trackpad on the new MacBook and the MacBook Pro, like defining words and stuff. I think this has lots of potential, and it will be something that people actually use, unlike Siri

I agree with your point about Siri, and I also believe that force touch has an even greater potential for third-party apps.