iPhone 6s: Is 3D Touch the next evolution of the smartphone?
Apple’s defining product breakthroughs have owed their success to a new interface. Touch revolutionised the smartphone; 3D Touch adds a new dimension.
Apple gathered the world’s technology press in San Francisco yesterday for another of its high-profile announcements, widely expected to be the launch of a new iPhone. Indeed, surprising no one, the new smartphones were revealed to be the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
Typically these “s” releases are incremental upgrades, with standard spec bumps for the camera and processor, and perhaps a centrepiece, but not world-changing, feature — Siri on the 4s, Touch ID on the 5s. However this year the 6s boasts what might be Apple’s most interesting new feature for a while. But more on that later. At this event, CEO Tim Cook covered a lot of ground before even getting to the iPhone:
Software updates and new style options for the nascent Apple Watch were revealed, but the general consensus within the industry — that the smartwatch is still a work-in-progress —will likely not be swayed until its hardware matures.
The Californian company’s diminutive set-top box, the Apple TV, received a much-needed upgrade with some serious computing power under the hood, a new motion- and touch-equipped remote, and a focus on natural language voice control provided by Siri. Whether this will finally be the box to replace the traditional, over-the-air television experience remains to be seen, but it looks like Apple is laying a strong foundation for the future of television to reach fruition.
Maybe the headline-grabbing announcement was the reveal of the iPad Pro, a supersized tablet aimed at, well, professionals. Its 12.9-inch display is comparable to many laptops, and it utilises iOS 9’s new multitasking features to run two fullscreen iPad apps side-by-side. The new device is a shot squarely at Microsoft’s Surface Pro, and even offers (as optional extras) a similar keyboard cover and, a smart stylus, rather ridiculously labelled the Apple Pencil.
Steve Jobs famously decried styli as a design failure, even ridiculing them during his initial iPhone unveiling: “Who wants a stylus?” Clearly though, the iPad Pro is not the iPhone, and here Apple is prioritising productivity in a way we haven’t seen from an iDevice before, as evidenced by the appearance of Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop at the event.
Critics will argue this is another example of Apple following where it used to lead: the company once claimed that 7 inches was too small for a tablet and 5 inches was too large for a smartphone. Then it released the iPad mini and the iPhone 6 Plus, apparently caving to dimensions offered by its competitors.
That said, the iPad mini is now the most popular tablet in the category and Apple's smartphone market share has increased since the launch of the jumbo-sized iPhone 6 Plus, while rivals have receded or stagnated. Whether this is due to the power of Apple’s brand, or its superior implementation of new features, is a matter for debate. The fact remains though, a vastly successful string of products continues to roll out of Cupertino.
We should remember: Apple wasn’t the first company to launch an MP3 player, smartphone or tablet computer either. And yet the iPod, iPhone and iPad each inarguably defined their respective categories and revolutionised the marketplace. The best explanation for this speaks to the most interesting of yesterday's announcements: interface.
Apple’s foundational success, the Macintosh, was characterised by a revolutionary device, the mouse. The iPod achieved ubiquity because of its iconic and simple click wheel. Multi-touch, first on the iPhone and then the iPad, instantly rendered other touchscreens obsolete, along with the ‘smart’ phones that utilised them. Interface has been responsible for each of Apple’s breakthrough products.
Alongside a more capable processor and camera, the iPhone 6s will be the first device to feature ‘3D Touch’, an evolution of the ‘Force Touch’ that debuted on the Apple Watch earlier this year. 3D Touch can sense the force or depth of a touch, granting different options accordingly. A light press on an app reveals context-sensitive actions, while lightly touching a link allows you to ‘peek’ at its contents, before a more forceful push ‘pops’ you into the corresponding app. It offers functionality between a mouse right-click and OS X’s Quick Look feature, and flexibility to an interface where screen real estate is at a high premium.
If you were to give each leading tech company a defining attribute, perhaps Google would be ‘knowledge’; Microsoft, ‘productivity’; Facebook, ‘connectivity’; and Amazon, ‘convenience’.
Apple, without doubt, would be ‘tactility’. More than anyone else, it understands the importance of how a product feels to use — that’s why consumers can freely fondle its devices in Apple Stores. It’s hard to remember now, but the audible gasps in 2007 the first time Steve Jobs showed the world the simple act of scrolling on an iPhone illustrate what a watershed moment it was for technology.
Multi-touch changed the world — this isn’t hyperbolic; it’s demonstrably true. Without it there could be no modern smartphone, and the new tech boom — that’s rapidly changing every facet of our lives, from communication and entertainment, to dating and transportation — would not have been possible.
Touch has created a personal connection to software that never existed in the PC-era — the success of apps like Snapchat and Tinder are arguably predicated upon it. 3D Touch is more of an evolutionary step, but it will be interesting to see what innovations await now that the interface, quite literally, has another dimension. ⬢
This article was published in PR Week.