The new iPhone SE brings back features like TouchID. However, the iPhone SE also replaces 3D Touch found on older iPhones with Haptic Touch. Some of the iPhone SE users have taken to Reddit and are complaining that Haptic Touch is not working with notifications.

Ideally long pressing on the Notification should activate a context menu with action items. However, long-pressing on Notifications on iPhone SE does nothing. In other words, there is no way you can respond to the notification without having to unlock the device. Apparently, the missing feature is not a bug but a missing feature.

I received my SE yesterday and very quickly realized that ‌Haptic Touch‌ is not supported on notifications. I am not seeing this reported anywhere, haven’t seen one review mentioning it, no video I watched mentioned it. ‌Haptic Touch‌ works for peeking and pop, and on icons on the home screen but if you are on the lock screen or Notification Center and try to long-press an email to archive, or a text to quick reply you are out of luck.

On the 6S-XS 3D Touch was the solution, with the XR and 11 series ‌Haptic Touch‌ was the replacement, but this is the first non ‌3D Touch‌ phone to be released where all the features of ‌Haptic Touch‌ are not fully baked into the OS.”

The iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro come equipped with Haptic Touch as well. If you long-press then it will show a sub-menu. Even the iPhone SE comes with Haptic Touch, however, it doesn’t work with Notifications.

Our Take

In all likelihood, Apple will respond and fix this issue. Perhaps, the Apple Support executive is not well equipped to answer about the feature or maybe it was lost in translation. Haptic Touch is Apple’s marketing term for a long press with haptic feedback from the sensor. We hope that Apple sorts out the issue at the earliest and issues an official statement regarding the same.