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Apps that show the amazing potential of 3D Touch

Published Dec 26th, 2015 9:45AM EST
iPhone 6s 3D Touch Best Apps

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Although I’ve found the iPhone 6s’s 3D Touch to be a very cool feature, it’s not something that I would call essential to my everyday experience. However, The Verge’s Lauren Goode has written a terrific article that highlights some apps that are really finding some creative uses for 3D Touch that go well beyond the “peak-and-pop” capabilities that Apple touted during the iPhone 6s’s launch this past fall.

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One intriguing app is a game called Bandit’s Shark Showdown that was developed by a team of doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Essentially, the game’s 3D Touch capabilities were designed to help stroke victims regain use of their hands during recovery, as the game forces you to apply different levels of pressure on the display at different times to control your player character’s speed and force.

“The more force you apply with your hand, the less dexterity you have with your hand,” John Hopkins neuroscientist and neurologist John Krakauer explains to Goode. “You want to stress the dexterity requirement at higher levels of force. And this force sensor allows you to play into the trade-off between force and dexterity.”

Other 3D Touch apps highlighted in Goode’s article include painting app Procreate, which lets you intensify your drawing strokes by applying different levels of pressure; music creation app iMaschine 2, which lets you adjust a note’s pitch by applying different pressure; and action game Breakneck, which gives you more granular control over your vehicle with 3D Touch.

To see what other great apps are breaking new ground with 3D Touch, read Goode’s full article at this link.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.