Apple’s piece of hardware added to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is the pressure-sensitive display included in both models. Apple coined it 3D Touch so that the screen can recognize multiple layers of pressure. Although the technology is self explanatory, although it is not clear exactly where you can take advantage of the function while using the iPhone.
Since 3D Touch is a totally new feature for the iPhone, both Apple and the developers are fine-tuning when and where to implement it. To help you confuse, here are the five best uses for 3D Touch.
Peek and Pop
The gesture that you will quickly become familiar with when using 3D Touch is called Peek and Pop. In most of Apple’s stock apps, such as Messages and Mail, you can tap the screen to look into something without opening it fully, and then , press a little more to open the item to fill the screen.
Being able to quickly preview articles without having to fully open them is a huge time saver. This feature occurs erroneously between apps as developers have to update their apps to support it, but many have already implemented the feature in some clever way.
Quick actions
Perhaps the most practical use of 3D Touch is to perform what Apple calls Quick Actions from the home screen. They can be activated by pressing an application icon. Similar to Peek and Pop, not all applications support Quick Actions, but for those that do a menu of actions it will appear when you press the icon down. Here you will have options to quickly do some neat stuff with the supported apps.
For example, with the Camera application, you can quickly take a selfie, video, slo-mo video, or just a normal photo. For the Mail app, you can quickly move on to creating a new message, etc. Quick actions are useful for shaving a few seconds longer than it needs to be done.
Live photos
Another major update to Apple’s new iPhones is Live Photos. When activated, a small amount of video and sound is captured when taking a photo. It can then be played back so that the photo appears alive. When viewing a live photo in the Photos app, you can tap it to play the captured motion and sound.
For this function to work, you must activate the Live Photo option while taking the photo. While in the Camera app, make sure the crazy circle icon at the top of the screen is highlighted in yellow.
App changer
Before 3D Touch, the only way to switch from app to app was to double-click the Home button to access the app switch. Now you can quickly access the application switch by pressing on the left side of the screen and sliding your finger to the right and releasing it. You can also quickly switch back and forth from the most recently used application by swiping to the right side of the screen.
This is the same gesture you use to step back in many apps, unless you apply a little pressure. This afternoon a few times to be used, but it is another time saver.
Links (edit)
One of my favorite uses for 3D Touch is previewing links. You can do this from almost anywhere on your iPhone where you see a link. We take for example Safari. If you are browsing a web page and viewing a link, you can click it to view the web page in a preview window. If it looks interesting, press a little more to show it in full screen.
This also works for any link in the Messages app. My preferred example is when someone sends me a message asking if I am available on a certain date or time. A link is created for the specific time, and when I press, a preview of the Calendar app appears showing me if I have anything at the moment.
Note that there are other places where you can use 3D Touch, so do a little experimentation and look for preferred uses of 3D Touch to the iPhone.
