iPhone SE 2 users have discovered that the haptic touch engine doesn’t work in quite the same way, so holding down on a notification won’t pull up the usual list of actions for an app.
The new iPhone SE hasn’t long been out in the wild, but buyers have already managed to find an annoying quirk on the handset. Notifications don’t react to long presses from the user, so there are none of the usual snooze or view options available from the notification centre.
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There is a sort-of workaround for this; users can swipe left to pop up the ‘view’ option of most app notifications. And Mac Rumours reports that haptic touch does work on live, incoming notifications, but not on messages displayed in the main notification centre or on the phone’s lock screen.
So if you don’t have your phone open and unlocked when you receive a new email, there’s no quick way to read, delete or forward it.
Annoyingly, it looks like this isn’t just a bug that needs to be fixed. Matthew Panzarino from TechCrunch has reported that the feature is “working as intended,” so Apple doesn’t have any plans to updated it.
Fwiw. this is not a bug. It's not an ideal situation for me (I use notification actions dozens of times a day every day). Haptic works in many other ways on iPhone SE, but not on notifications. https://t.co/2SqFKKGlZG
— Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) April 27, 2020
This will be something of an irritant to people upgrading from older iPhones. The functionality was present on the iPhone 8 – which is actually the base design for this new model – so anyone who’s decided to ditch that handset for the shiny new design will be rightly dissatisfied.
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It’s not clear why Apple has decided to remove this function on the iPhone SE 2, or why the company is so staunchly against including the feature in a future update. As the phone shares similar hardware with the iPhone 8, presumably it could support the haptic touch function if it was introduced.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on the issue, and will update this piece with any response.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.