PSA: iPhone SE's Haptic Touch Doesn't Work With Notifications and It's Not a Bug

Customers who have purchased the new 2020 iPhone SE have found a surprising missing feature - Haptic Touch does not work with notifications.

On the 2020 ‌iPhone‌ SE, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or on the Lock screen does not appear to bring up rich notification options to allow ‌iPhone‌ SE users to interact with incoming content.

richnotificationsiphone11pro

Rich notifications accessed with ‌Haptic Touch‌ on an ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro

There have been complaints about the missing feature on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. From Reddit:

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 peek 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

With Haptic Touch-enabled devices like the ‌iPhone‌ 11 and 11 Pro, long pressing on a notification in the Notification Center or the Lock screen brings up interactive options based on the app sending the notification. An Apple News notification, for example, brings up options for reading the full story, sharing a story, or saving for later, while an email app might offer options to reply and delete an incoming message without needing to open the app.

In our testing, we were not able to long press on a notification to view these interactive options, as the long press functionality did not work. We also tried on an ‌iPhone‌ 8, which the ‌iPhone‌ SE is based on, but we were able to get the rich notifications to work on that device, which has 3D Touch.

While ‌iPhone‌ SE users cannot long press on notifications on the Lock screen or in the Notification Center, there does appear to be a ‌Haptic Touch‌ option when pressing on an incoming notification when the ‌iPhone‌ is in use.

A Reddit user called Apple Support and was told there was no software update planned to fix the behavior, but Apple Support can be unreliable when it comes to information about new hardware releases.

Update: According to TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino, the lack of ‌Haptic Touch‌ for notifications on the ‌iPhone‌ SE is not a bug and the feature is working as Apple intended.

Update 2: MacRumors forum members have pointed out that it's possible to slide to the left on a notification and tap on the "View" option as a workaround for the missing ‌Haptic Touch‌ feature.

Related Forum: iPhone

Popular Stories

iOS 26

Everything New in iOS 26.1 Beta 1

Monday September 22, 2025 12:44 pm PDT by
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about. New Apple Intelligence Languages Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese. AirPo...
apple tv 4k new orange

Next Apple TV Expected to Launch This Year With These New Features

Monday September 22, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
The next Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors. Likely Features N1 Chip With Wi-Fi 7 Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the next Apple TV would be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, which is...
Apple Intelligence General Feature 2

iOS 26.1 Adds New Apple Intelligence Languages and Expands AirPods Live Translation

Monday September 22, 2025 11:15 am PDT by
With iOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence is gaining support for additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese. Apple announced plans to expand the languages that can be used with Apple Intelligence last year, and now the added language support is here. Apple Intelligence is now available in the following...
iPhone 17 Pro and Air N1 Feature

Some iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone Air Users Experiencing Intermittent Wi-Fi Issue

Monday September 22, 2025 8:44 am PDT by
Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues. Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Foldable iPhone Like 'Two Titanium iPhone Airs' Joined at the Hinge

Monday September 22, 2025 2:16 am PDT by
Next year's rumored foldable iPhone will showcase an ultra-thin design resembling "two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Writing in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple's first foldable device will be "super thin and a design achievement," combining Apple's thinnest iPhone form factor with cutting-edge folding...
iPhone 17 Pro and Air Feature

Two iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air Colors Appear to Scratch More Easily

Friday September 19, 2025 10:02 am PDT by
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed. French blog Consomac also reported on this topic. The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black. Images Credit: Consoma ...
iPhone 17 Pro USB C Port

iPhone 17 Pro Max's USB-C Charging Speeds Tested With Apple Chargers

Monday September 22, 2025 7:29 am PDT by
The website ChargerLAB has tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max's USB-C charging speeds with a variety of Apple's chargers, from 18W to 140W. The device reached a peak charging speed of around 36W with the following Apple chargers:40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max 61W USB-C Power Adapter 67W USB-C Power Adapter 70W USB-C Power Adapter 96W USB-C Power Adapter 140W USB-C Power AdapterFor...
iOS 26

Apple Seeds First Betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS Tahoe 26.1

Monday September 22, 2025 10:05 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with the first betas of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The new betas are the first updates to the iOS, iPadOS, macOS 26, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS releases that came out last week. The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going...

Top Rated Comments

whyamihere Avatar
71 months ago
Well ya didn't expect to get ALLL the iOS functionality for $399 did ya?!? ;)
Score: 39 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jclardy Avatar
71 months ago
This better be a bug, as a dev having to “inform” users of the various interactions (3D touch, Haptic Touch, drag down) on notifications sucks...and then having a random brand new device not support it at all makes it even worse.

My guess is the SE has a modified iPhone 8 version of iOS, which is expecting 3D touch to access these things.
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
71 months ago
People are saying this is a bug, but it works this same way on the old iPhone SE. It's Apple segmenting software features, even though it leads to an inconsistent UI and user frustration. It's not even a big thing, it's a little thing, and it's annoying that they've decided to do this. Hopefully they reverse course.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Stromos Avatar
71 months ago
I would say it has to be a bug otherwise it's purely a we are holding back features on the cheaper phone.....
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dontwalkhand Avatar
71 months ago
I am hoping this is just a bug. Though I will be honest, I don't think I ever used this feature on my 11 Pro.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
zorinlynx Avatar
71 months ago
This is most likely a bug. There's some apps like Duo that require this functionality to work!
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)