Ever since Apple debuted “Force Touch” on the Apple Watch earlier this year, the pressure-sensing mechanism has been at the center of heated debate. On one hand, there are some who don’t feel like Force Touch – or 3D Touch as the same system is called on the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus – adds any real-world utility. On the other, some argue that a display’s ability to detect various pressure levels opens up the door to a new level of user interaction. In this context, we’d like to talk about how Instagram has attempted to bring 3D Touch-like functionality to its Android app.
A new update to the Instagram app for Android borrows a trick that the Facebook-owned social network originally debuted on the iOS version of the app. On the iPhone 6S, for example, users can preview an image by performing a hard press on a photo’s icon. In the new Instagram app for Android, this feature is replicated in a similar fashion, although it is initiated by a long press, not a harder one.
