The Apple iPhone XR is now the budget iPhone and as such, there are various features the phone skips out on. Amongst things missing is 3D Touch, a feature that has garnered a “love it or hate it” reputation.
People either don’t care for its presence or rely on it extensively to get things done on their iPhones. Either way, the iPhone XR does not have it, but Apple is working on a way to give users something similar. Apple tried to implement the Tap and hold gesture for the iPhone XR, but with iOS 12.1.1, the feature is set to get much better. With 3D Touch, users are able to push on a notification with a little extra pressure to get a preview of the contents of the said notification.
With iOS 12.1.1 update, iPhone XR users will be able to do the same thing with the same result, except the implementation relies on the “long press” model. 3D Touch was a huge feature when it was introduced back in 2015. Apple made a big deal out of it when it was introduced in the iPhone 6S, with Phil Schiller admitting that it took a massive engineering feat to get a display to do what 3D Touch is supposed to do. Earlier this year, analysts did say that Apple could entirely drop the feature from future iPhones starting 2019, given its luke-warm adoption.
If this is indeed to come true, the iPhone XR (Review) could be a test bed for the company to implement a different way to achieve the same result. Using a long press gesture does make sense at first, but given how long pressing on an icon in iOS puts it in edit mode, the implementation of the gesture would have to be done very carefully. For now, iOS 12.1.1 is currently in public beta and a final rollout is expected soon.
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