We have repeated it ad nauseam: iOS 9 is an operating system to focus on stabilization and bug fixes, with hardly any news. And suddenly Apple goes and shows us the 3D Touch. This new Force touch is a revolution in how we are going to interact with iOS 9, and the possibilities it offers developers are enormous. What is 3D Touch? What will it do? We will tell you about it below.
The revolution behind the Multi-Touch
When Apple introduced its first iPhone, it showed us the Multi-Touch. For the first time a screen was able to detect the pressure of two fingers, or three, even up to five fingers. We have already become accustomed to performing multi-touch gestures, especially on the iPad, where for example we can close applications by joining the five fingers. From now on we will not only have to know where to click, but also we must also control the force with which we do it.
To explain it better Apple uses two new terms: Peek and Pop. When we lightly press the screen we will Peek, and when we press more firmly we will make Pop. These names are not a whim of Apple, but respond more or less to the function of each press. When we Peek (press gently) we will see a preview of what we are pressing (peek in English is to take a look), and when we do Pop (press harder) we will access that content (referring to the term pop in English as well). Broadly speaking, we can say that this is what the 3D Touch consists of, but there is much more.
Access without having to enter
¿You want to see the content of an email without having to enter it? Then do Peek. Do you want to open it? Press a little harder and make Pop and you'll be in. The same can be applied to links: Peek to preview the web page, Pop to open it in Safari. Photos, map directions ... Press lightly to preview, press more to open. A new way of accessing things without having to abandon what we are doing.
Shortcuts to frequent actions
But as we said, they don't just stay in this. Because we can perform actions from our springboard. It will no longer be necessary to enter an application to do something, but thanks to this new 3D Touch we can do it just by clicking on the application icon. Sending messages to your regular contacts, directly accessing the video camera or saving a location is as simple and fast as clicking on the corresponding icon and clicking on the desired action.
Additional options
But we can make things even more complicated and offer more options.. If you Peek on a link you will see the preview of the web page. If you now slide up, you will see the options to open it in a new tab or add it to the reading list. Wherever you see a contact photo, you can press on it to display the options to call him, send him a message, an email, etc. And if you're viewing an email through Peek, swipe to one side to delete it or to the other to mark it as read.
And there are still more
3D Touch technology has only just appeared, but it already offers many possibilities. To everything we have said we can add for example the ability to turn the keyboard into a trackpad by pressing on it, or access multitasking by pressing on the edge of the screen. We will also obtain different strokes when painting in the Notes application depending on the pressure we make. And this is only the beginning, because developers can access this technology and use it in their applications. Did you think you already knew how iOS 9 worked? Well, go changing the chip. We leave you with the Apple video to see all this in operation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSTEB8cdQwo
Because the iPad Air 2 does not bring. 3D touch