Rumors of 3D Touch’s death may have been greatly exaggerated. At least, that is the newest rumor mixed up in all of this.
It has been suggested for quite some time now that 3D Touch is on the way out. Indeed, with the launch of iOS 12.1.1 back in November of 2018, Apple expanded support for Haptic Touch in the iPhone XR (which doesn’t support 3D Touch), allowing for folks to long-press on notifications to get more information. It’s similar to 3D Touch, but just different enough to get its own branding.
To support the speculation that 3D Touch is on the way out, Barclays released an analyst report saying that the 2019 iPhone lineup would drop the feature altogether. And, sure enough, with the launch of the first developer beta of iOS 13, the grumblings of 3D Touch’s demise have resurfaced even stronger.
But, what was first perceived as an indication that 3D Touch was indeed on the way out may actually be nothing more than a bug.
Twitter user Don (@donbytyqi) posted on the social network today that he emailed Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi, to find out what, exactly, was going on with 3D Touch in iOS 13. Is it dead? Maybe not yet!
Here’s the tweet, which includes what Don says is the screen capture of Federighi’s response:
I emailed Craig Frederighi about the 3D Touch getting removed from iOS 13 Beta 1, looks like it's actually a bug. Not removed. pic.twitter.com/PwwZsK42Og
— Don (@donbytyqi) June 11, 2019
That’s the whole screenshot, though, so there’s obviously some room there for this to be fake. If it isn’t, though, this indicates that Apple is not ditching 3D Touch just yet, and will be holding onto the feature for a little bit longer.
Nothing is confirmed just yet, but if this email exchange with Federighi is the real deal, then that’s good news for 3D Touch fans out there. Of course, Haptic Touch in the iPhone XR works pretty well, and it seems possible that Apple could simply just expand upon that (or scale back 3D Touch if necessary) to bring the basics of the feature to every smartphone, even if they don’t have the hardware technology to support 3D Touch.
We will just have to wait and see what happens. As noted in the tweet’s image, it’s suggested we should wait for the next iOS 13 beta. Will 3D Touch make a triumphant return? What do you think? Are you ready to say goodbye to the feature, or would you like to see it stick around?