John Gruber, on Daring Fireball:

3D Touch is the sort of feature that either needs to be on all iPhones or else should be dropped. If it’s not pervasive across the entire platform, developers can’t count on it. I think that’s why it’s underutilized today. But it’s one thing to wait for older iPhones from the pre-3D Touch era to drop out of usage. It’s another for Apple to sell a brand new phone in 2018 without it.

I would happily replace my iPhone X with this new rumoured cheaper 6.1” device, but it will supposedly lack two things: the aforementioned 3D Touch layer and a dual camera system.

Apple will be able to use the camera as a differentiator in the close future, but as more and more Android phones adopt this technology, it will become a standard and expected feature quickly. But I cannot imagine them shipping a new iPhone without 3D Touch. We’ve been using it for three generations now, so it’s high time for it to be more pervasive across all devices, including iPads. Even if developers don’t actively support it, this is the single best way to manipulate the cursor and text on the iPhone. The iPad gets away with two fingers for now, but it really could use this tech.