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Craig Federighi Says 3D Touch App Switcher Gesture Will Return in Future Update to iOS 11

Thursday September 21, 2017 11:01 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple software engineering chief Craig Federighi has revealed that a popular 3D Touch gesture for accessing the App Switcher will apparently return in a future update to iOS 11.

Federighi, replying to an email from MacRumors reader Adam Zahn, said Apple had to "temporarily drop support" for the gesture due to an unidentified "technical constraint."

Question from Zahn: Could we at least make the 3D Touch app switch gesture an option in iOS 11 so that I could retain the ability to switch apps that way instead of having to double tap the home button?

Response from Federighi: Hi Adam,

We regretfully had to temporarily drop support for this gesture due to a technical constraint. We will be bringing it back in an upcoming iOS 11.x update.

Thanks (and sorry for the inconvenience)!

- craig

On devices that support 3D Touch running iOS 9 or iOS 10, users can press deeply on the left side of the screen, drag to the right, and release to quickly access the App Switcher. The gesture stopped working in the iOS 11 beta, and an Apple engineer later confirmed it was "intentionally removed."


MacRumors has verified this email exchange passed through mail servers with an IP address range linked to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. Coupled with the fact Federighi has been replying to several customer emails since the iPhone X event last week, we're fairly confident in its accuracy.

Federighi replies have also revealed that Face ID will work with most sunglasses and that Apple has considered a Nightstand mode for iPhone X.

Tags: Craig Federighi, 3D Touch
[ 207 comments ]


Top Rated Comments

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Geert76
18 months ago
Craig should be CEO of this company (not just because of this email)
Rating: 81 Votes
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JM
18 months ago
Craig for CEO
Rating: 56 Votes
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cmaier
18 months ago
As a general observation, Apple missed an opportunity in iOS 11 to make 3D touch more pervasive, more useful, and more discoverable (e.g. visual or other indications when it is available, etc.)
Rating: 25 Votes
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Phogro
18 months ago
Wow - we were loud enough
Rating: 19 Votes
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Lion007s
18 months ago

Hope you can toggle it off. Hated it. Wouldn’t work when I wanted it to and always activated when I’d be swiping to go back.


How hard were you swiping when going back? Because it actually requires pressure exerted just on the edge. This would mean when you initiate a swipe you'd actually be pausing on the edge and applying pressure before continuing the swipe motion. A fluid swipe without pressure would solve this issue for you.
Rating: 17 Votes
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citysnaps
18 months ago

Craig should be CEO of this company (not just of this email)


Why? Be specific, outlining his credentials and suitability.

He's doing a really good job as SVP Software. But that is far different than being a CEO of a company the size of Apple..
Rating: 14 Votes
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0997853
18 months ago

Huh, I wonder what the “constraint” was.

Too much "courage".
Rating: 11 Votes
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eyeseeyou
18 months ago
But will the ability to swipe down for notifications when using the reachability feature make a return?
Rating: 10 Votes
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enrilo
18 months ago
Bring back the wifi toggle!
Rating: 10 Votes
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alejandroivan
18 months ago

Great news. Please bring also back a real wifi toggle to the control center.

After that iOS 11 will be complete.


I don't really get why people get so annoyed about this.

When completely disabling WiFi, location services work odd. Sometimes you just have to enable WiFi (even when not connecting to a network) in order to get precise location updates. Leaving it enabled (which doesn't consume too much battery) but without letting it connect to a wireless network makes sense. Of course, you can always toggle it completely off in the Settings app...
Rating: 9 Votes

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