On the surface the iPhone XR looks a lot like the iPhone Xs in terms of design, where it sports an edge-to-edge display, no home button, and uses Face ID for security. However under the hood that’s where most of the differences lie, where Apple has removed certain features to help keep costs down.One of the features that Apple removed was 3D Touch which they replaced with Haptic Touch, which is essentially a long-press that comes with haptic feedback. However its use was somewhat limited, although the good news is that Apple is apparently looking to expand on it. This was revealed in a review of the iPhone XR by The Verge where they were told that Apple does plan to eventually expand on the feature.
The publication writes, “Haptic Touch does not have equivalents to everything 3D Touch can do, however — I missed previewing links in Safari and Twitter quite a bit. Apple told me it’s working to bring it to more places in iOS over time, but that it’s going slow to make sure the implementation is right.”
While 3D Touch was an interesting feature, the fact that it wasn’t obvious meant that many users probably did not even know about it. It is unclear if the removal of it in the iPhone XR could mean that over time Apple does plan on deprecating the feature in future iPhones, but we suppose we’ll have to wait and see.