Perhaps the most significant feature Apple added to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus is 3D Touch. The new pressure-sensitive touchscreen opens the door to exciting user interface interactions, such as peek and pop, which let you preview and open items with a simple press. There’s also support for Quick Actions, which allow you to press on a UI element and view a shortcut menu with a variety of commonly-used actions, such as “Create New Task” or “Open New Document”.
This feature is not limited to Apple’s stock iOS apps, either — it was made available to all iOS apps via a developer API. Below you will find a list of some the best apps to use this new 3D Touch interface.
Instagram (Free): As shown by Apple during its press event, you can use a home screen quick action to post an image to Instagram more easily. Within the app, you can use peek to get a preview of photos in your timeline.
Magic Piano (Free): Smule added pressure sensitivity to its popular piano note tapping app. You can control the volume of a note by pressing each one with a different level of force.
Open Table (Free): Restaurant reservation app Open Table allows you to use home screen quick actions to access your favorites and upcoming reservations. You also can use peek inside the app when searching for a restaurant. Simply tap a restaurant in the sear results to learn more abut it and to select at time to book a reservation.
Endless Reader (Free): Endless Reader takes advanatage of the iPhone’s new pressusre sensitive screen, letting children press down on the letters and words to make them respond in amusing ways.
Dropbox (Free): Preview files and folders by firmly pressing on their names from within the Dropbox app. Push harder to ‘pop’ the content into view. You can also access your most recent file from the Home screen using the Quick Actions gesture.
Apple Store (Free): Apple’s official retail store app now supports 3D Touch quick Actions. Just force press on the home screen app icon to access a menu with options to begin shopping, browse a list of retail stores, or view existing orders.
News360 (Free): The latest News360 update added support for peek and pop, allowing you to press lightly on a story to get a 3-sentence summary and then push down more forcefully to open the full text. There’s also a new quick actions that’ll let you open Top Stories, Local News or your Saved stories by pressing on the News360 icon on your Home screen.
CARROT Weather ($3.99): Force press on the Carrot Weather icon from the Home screen to quickly search for new locations or view the weather for a saved location.
Camera+ ($2.99): Use home screen quick actions to take a photo, snap a selfie, capture a macro or view the lightbox.
Workflow ($3.99): Use a force touch within the Workflow to peek inside a workflow. You also can press on the Workflow app icon for quick shortcuts to your workflows.
Pinterest (Free): Use a force touch gesture to peek and pop open your Pins.
Launch Center Pro ($4.99): Use quick actions to launch your favorite Launch Center actions. You can customize this quick action list in the settings.
AG Drive ($2.99): The highly acclaimed futuristic racer has adopted 3D touch, allowing you to use force touch to accelerate.
Things ($9.99): Things makes it easy to access your tasks with new home screen quick actions.
Genius Scan+ – PDF Scanner ($6.99): Press on the Genius Scan home screen icon and use quick actions to quickly scan with Camera, scan from photos or scan from cloud.
GIF Keyboard (Free): New quick action application shortcuts allow you launch a GIF search directly from your home screen.
The Night Sky ($0.99): Track constellations and stars more easily with new home screen quick actions that provide shortcuts to the latest news from NASA, a search tool, and quick access to the live sky view.
Sky Guide ($2.99): The popular star gazing app supports peek and pop, allowing you to view quick previews of any article while browsing the search menu. You also can use home screen quick actions to access to your favorites list, initiate a search, or view satellites
Shazam (Free): Use 3D Touch quick actions on the home screen app icon to start song detection without opening the Shazam app.
iMovie (Free; $4.99): New quick action support allows you to start a new movie project from the home screen using a light press on the app icon.
OmniFocus 2 ($39.99): Use a 3D touch quick action to launch directly into a New Inbox Item, open to the OmniFocus Home Screen, retrieve the last item you were viewing, or go straight to the Today view by firmly pressing the home screen app icon.
OmniGraffle ($49.99): Use a 3D touch quick action to start a new document or open existing diagrams by firmly pressing the home screen app icon.
OmniOutliner 2 ($29.99): Use a 3D touch quick action to launch directly into a new document or open one of your recently edited documents by firmly pressing the home screen app icon.
Scanner Pro by Readdle – Scan documents and receipts into PDF or JPEG files ($2.99): Firmly press the home screen app icon to access the “New Scan” shortcut using a 3D touch quick action.
PDF Expert 5 – Fill forms, annotate PDFs, sign documents ($9.99): Added support for 3D touch quick actions that are accessible from the home screen.
Documents 5 – Fast PDF reader, media player and download manager (Free): Supports 3D touch quick actions. Just firmly press the app icon to open shortcuts for accessing your Recently Opened files, viewing your Favorites, initiating a search and opening items in the browser.
Share your favorite 3D Touch-enabled apps
Have you found other 3D Touch enabled apps for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus? Please share your finds and your favorites with us in the comments below.
Also check out:
- How to take and view Live Photos on your iPhone 6s
- How to take Live Selfies with Retina Flash on the iPhone 6s
- How to peek and pop with 3D Touch on iPhone 6s
- How to quickly switch apps with 3D Touch on iPhone 6s
- How to use Quick actions with 3D Touch on iPhone 6s
- How to animate a Live Photo with 3D Touch
