Latest iOS 17 Beta Makes Haptic Touch Faster

The second beta of iOS 17 that Apple released to developers yesterday includes a setting that makes the haptic feedback feature activate faster than before, which some users may prefer.

haptic touch ios 17 fast
An Accessibility option, faster haptic feedback can be activated in the Settings app by going to Accessibility > Touch > Haptic Touch. From there, the options are Fast, Default, and Slow. Toggling on Fast speeds up ‌Haptic Touch‌, and the duration can be tested using the image in the Settings app.

In iOS 16 and the first beta of ‌iOS 17‌, options for ‌Haptic Touch‌ included Fast and Slow, with "Fast" previously being equivalent to the Default option in the new interface. The new Fast toggle is a step up in speed compared to the old Fast option.


Setting ‌Haptic Touch‌ to Fast makes a noticeable difference in how quick haptic menus pop up under the finger when an icon or on-screen element is long pressed. The speed brings ‌Haptic Touch‌ interactions closer to 3D Touch interactions.

As many iPhone users might remember, ‌3D Touch‌ was an interactive haptic feature that Apple introduced in 2015 with the ‌iPhone‌ 6s and used prior to the ‌iPhone‌ XR. With the ‌iPhone‌ XR in 2018, Apple transitioned away from ‌3D Touch‌ and instead implemented the simplified ‌Haptic Touch‌. ‌3D Touch‌ supported multiple levels of pressure for different interactions depending on how hard you pressed, with Apple implementing "Peek and Pop" gestures. Comparatively, ‌Haptic Touch‌ supports just a single level of pressure for the long press gesture.

‌Haptic Touch‌ has always worked slower than ‌3D Touch‌ because of the two levels of pressure that ‌3D Touch‌ allowed for. The first ‌3D Touch‌ pressure level activated quickly when pressing on the display, so those who became used to ‌3D Touch‌ may have found the ‌Haptic Touch‌ replacement to be too sluggish. On Fast mode in ‌iOS 17‌, ‌Haptic Touch‌ is quicker and feels more sensitive.

It's still not entirely clear why Apple got rid of ‌3D Touch‌, but it has been speculated that Apple eliminated it in order to bring gesture parity to the ‌iPhone‌ and the iPad. ‌3D Touch‌ was always an iPhone-only feature, but ‌Haptic Touch‌ is available on both the ‌iPhone‌ and the ‌iPad‌.

Related Roundups: iOS 17, iPadOS 17
Related Forums: iOS 17, iPadOS 17

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Top Rated Comments

alternamelka Avatar
15 months ago
I know we're all thinking it but GOD do I miss 3D touch ??? The little tease you could do with it to see whether you wanted to commit fully to the action ?

Bring her back!!
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
15 months ago
I'm loving this. iPhone is well-responsive and fast. You can really notice a difference.

It feels like 3D-Touch is back on iPhones that are running iOS 17 Beta 2. I really hope Apple does not remove this feature in future beta releases.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KaliYoni Avatar
15 months ago

3D Touch was an interactive haptic feature that Apple introduced in 2018 with the iPhone XR
3D Touch dates back at least to the iPhone 6s (2015):
https://support.apple.com/kb/SP726?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kylo83 Avatar
15 months ago
Can we speed up overall system animations would be nice
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Radeon85 Avatar
15 months ago

In my opinion, Haptic Touch was already 99% the same thing as 3D Touch.
It's not even close, 3D touch was amazing and I used it heavily on a daily basis on the phone and watch haptic touch cannot replace the missing features. Removing it was one of the worst decisions they've made in a very long time.

3D touch was like a car accelerator, pressure sensitive now its just like tapping a button. It's complete crap.

There was games especially that made full use of it, hold the screen gently to accelerate and the harder you pressed the faster you went. Or waking, touch gently to walk and the harder you press the faster you ran. 3D touch worked exactly like an anoluge trigger which haptic can't do.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
15 months ago
I still miss 3D Touch. At least once per day I think about how much better it was, such as when I go to select text on the spacebar. I recently learned about the secondary tap trick to actually select when moving the cursor, but that's more clunky and doesn't seem to work as well for me either, but it's better than nothing.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)