Apple continues to release innovative products. Both iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s+ have a great innovative feature — 3D Touch.
In this article, we will talk about what 3D Touch offers mobile apps and games.

iOS Guidelines

The App Store has guidelines, and not following them will lead to the app/game rejection.

Are there any guidelines for 3D Touch?
The answer is no. Developers will be free to use 3D Touch in any way they are sure it will work the best.

Instead of guidelines, Apple shares info about 3D Touch and examples of using it. Let’s check them out briefly, so we can talk about the different uses of 3D Touch in apps and games.

Increasing Usability

3D Touch makes excess taps (or even some gestures) unnecessary.

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Just imagine how much this will influence the user experience. For example, 3D Touch can work well for zooming photos. The more a user pushes, the more zooming of the picture occurs.
So, zooming can now work with one finger instead of a double-finger zooming gesture.

This kind of zooming will work well for mobile shooters. Zooming in video games for consoles and PCs is usually easy. 3D Touch might bring the same easiness to mobile games.

Imagine how 3D Touch will serve people who live active lifestyles.
They will use the app and could need it to do some interactions while walk somewhere fast. Instead of make them lose lots of UI elements and buttons, 3D Touch could provide maximum functionality with minimum UI elements.

This innovation will work for all user interfaces and will allow designers to implement more functionality to screens without overloading them.

For example, it can be implemented on users’ profile pages on social networks. A tap on a photo can open the user’s full photo. A push on a photo can show additional info about the user or even show a nickname, age, and other basic info. Hiding this info will save space on the screen for user’s content.

Conclusion

Apple has presented a new dimension for interactions with mobile apps and sites.

It can be used as Apple proposes, or it can be used the way designers see it.

3D Touch increases usability and provides new opportunities. And the most important thing — the only limit for 3D Touch is imagination. Designers’ imagination can provide more usable and intuitive usage of 3D Touch in apps and games.

Find extended article with info about 3D Touch and how it is used by Instagram at 111 Minutes Blog!