Hacker News Reader

Comment by wjoe | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like it would be very difficult to get right. I can imagine a lot of false positives where I want to do a normal click, but I happen to press lighter than usual so it registers it as a "peek". Maybe they'll do it well enough that this doesn't happen, and maybe it's just something you'd get used to after a while, but to me it's a bit of "trying to be too clever", but then I'm the sort of person that disables things like auto-rotate for that reason.

View on HN

That’s the biggest worry, certainly, but I think it’s very possible to get this right. We do not yet know how this feels, but one positive indication that they payed lots of attention, to exactly this, one of the two central riddles to solve to get this tech right (the other being the places in the UI you use it and to what end), is that implementation details in the UI also telegraph how they want to communicate this feature.

So, first of all, there are three levels and the first level is a peek, nothing serious and totally non-committal. Frequently accidentally engaging this would probably still be super annoying, but if it happens once in a while and is also super responsive then that’s not a big deal. Making this first step non-committal is probably a big part of making this all work.

Second, the peek seems to show off some direct input based on force (with the preview dynamically resizing based on it), so that you are not blindly guessing the pressure you have to apply. This direct feedback is probably also a big part of the puzzle.

If they get that right and given their implementation (distinct, few and pretty clear and consistent places to force touch, at least within their applications, that all do predictable and understandable things) I think this is a winner and will make using everything much more of a joy to use. It could also suck. We don’t know yet. I’m just really happy someone is trying stuff like that. The vocabulary on touch devices we have is nice, but it is still sparse. Maybe this extension will work out, maybe it won’t. Either way, I’m excited.

Have you tried force touch on an Apple watch? There is definitely a big difference between the two there. I've never once messed it up.

Also the new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The trackpad feels exactly like the old one, but you can just keep pushing it and get a second click. It's really neat and I can't wait until El Capitan and for more apps to take advantage of it.

I've had one a few weeks and it's still utterly baffling

Though I think I'd like 3D touch just fine, I feel like it will be a difficulty to provide support for less tech centric family members. Something like the left and right mouse buttons and single vs double click, now touch lighter/harder. Touch the icon, is everything blurry except for a little menu, no press lighter now...

I don't know, pressing light or hard is a much more natural movement than even right/left clicking (let alone double-clicking). I press stuff light or hard all the time (check consistency, poke hole, induce movement, push stuff, etc…).

There might be a concern for people with motor ailments though (e.g. post-stroke), but hopefully force touch will stay a feature for shortcuts and peeking. Application features only being accessible via force touch would be terrible (outside of games maybe, since they're not really accessible in the first place)

I figure the simplest thing to do is have an Accessibility option to disable it completely for some users.

Yeah I expect it will be possible to disable it, which would become an issue if applications start requiring it.

The assistive touch "wheel" menu might also include a way to trigger it.

I think you are not supposed to hide any features behind that … Apple certainly doesn’t seem to want to. I really hope third party devs won’t … (games are the notable exception here – I generally don’t have a problem with those using any and all inputs their can get their hands on, but that’s just in the nature of the thing)

how do you change the watch face without force touch?

On the phones, obviously. There is too little space for such luxuries on the watch.

Not sure about this, in my (completely anecdotal, yes) experience, it's actually common for non-techies to think (consciously or not) that binary buttons can respond to different forces and press them harder when they are angry, frustrated, or being emphatic (think pressing harder while thinking "Yes, I REALLY want to turn on the microwave").

That's a good point. It seems like it indeed could make things more confusing, I think this is one of the things that Steve Jobs wouldn't allow.

I remember when full-screen touch was a new concept. Blackberry tried to introduce a physical "click" with the BB Storm. It sounded like a good idea, but it practice it turned out to be unnecessary. Apple won the UI battle. Not sure if 3D touch is a step forward or step back.

They did it with a big clunky movable screen, not unlike the current Thinkpad trackpad. Big mistake.

I'm not sure I trust the opinion of people who bought the Apple Watch. They seem to be the kind who are most likely to drink the kool-aid.

This seems like one of those features that looks kind of cool in a demo, but in practice you don't end up using it much. Time will tell.

I have one and despise force touch so far

Feedback from the watch and macbook trackpads seem to indicate it's great.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com