[ohitsdom]

> they want to make sure it is only used to add a quick way to do small things.

I don't understand this point at all. What does it have to do with not including the feature on a smaller device? "Because it might be used too much" makes no sense.

[wlesieutre]

It's not "because it might be used too much," it's "because developers might bury tons of functions where no one will ever find them, because that's easier than designing a learnable/discoverable UI."

Whether you agree with the argument depends on how much faith you have in developers/designers to understand how average users will experience and learn their software, and in whether they might go for the lazy "shove it in a contextual menu" solution even knowing that it's questionable at best. 3D touch is supposed to be a "power user" feature; if you don't know it's there you can get by just fine. It'll take you an extra half second to open an email.

By holding it hostage on some new products, Apple can hope for more developers to say "I'll use this for time-saving shortcuts and other convenience features since the iPhone SE users don't have it." Once best-practices for that are more ingrained and many apps have implemented it in a way that lines up with Apple's vision, there's less risk of buried features when they eventually include 3D touch across the lineup.

[marshray]

Whereas developers and hackers tend to like a surfeit of user interface features, the mass market is not as comfortable with it. Apple really likes to be the party in control of the degree of minimalism in the UI expressed by iOS devices.

[iLoch]

That's not a terrible theory. The UX of holding the screen down is terrible because it's completely hidden and requires you to guess. Not sure why they opted to include it in the first place.

[ohitsdom]

But why would that theory specifically apply to a smaller device, and not the 6S as well?