[ceejayoz]

It used to be pressure sensitive, which made it much faster to respond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Touch

> Haptic Touch is a feature on the iPhone XR (but not the iPhone XS) and later iPhone models replacing 3D Touch. The touchscreen, which no longer has a pressure sensitive layer, distinguishes between a tap and a long-press using a timed delay to activate certain 3D Touch features (only ones for elements that do not have an action assigned to long press). This feature was added to the iPhone SE (1st generation) with the iOS 13 update and to any iPad capable of running iPadOS 13. As of watchOS 7, only Haptic Touch is recognized, and Force Touch is discontinued on all subsequent Apple Watches.

[Micoloth]

3d touch is NOT simply "faster to respond".

The whole point is that, it enables a whole new type of interaction, that is: press to get into cursor mode -> hover over a word -> press again to select it. This is simply impossible without 3d Touch.

The fact that I've see this exchange many times ("But cant you long press to get a cursor?" / "Yes but 3d touch is faster"), even from people defending it, is so fun to me because it means the technology really was misunderstood, and explains a lot about why Apple killed it...

Idk if you can tell, I'm a fan of 3dTouch.

[Schiendelman]

As of this week, they made it fast again.

[ceejayoz]

It can never be as fast as with the real pressure sensors; it still has to be able to determine between a tap and a hold.

[Schiendelman]

Yep, but it doesn’t feel like a delay now.