They've still kept the functionality AFAIK - you could just long-touch for force touch menu. Instead of pressing hard, you're now pressing longer to invoke the 3D touch menu.
I know why Apple got rid of force touch - BOM cost. Not that I condone the concept of Force Touch, but some wizbang designer pitched to the management that hey "We could solve this using just the UI with long press, and save $$$ in LCD costs to put a force sensitive layer". That's exactly how this happened.
Edit: Just checked on iPhone 11 Pro - yup, just long touch an icon to popup a contextual menu which used to require pressing with force.
The main reason they got rid of it because it was a gimmick that never really panned out and having two different ways of invoking a context menu based on force was a UX disaster for the novice user.
I'm glad Apple was able to swallow their pride and drop their "breakthrough innovative pressure sensitive screen" - reducing BOM costs was the icing on the cake, although it seems like they have just replaced that space with more battery so I wouldn't be surprised if the BOM difference was negligible in the end.
I suspect it was also a disaster for older people. The delicate touch just seems to go away at some point. My mom for example can't do a half-press-to-focus on a camera. She just doesn't feel the extra step. I've seen older people doing force-touch gesture by accident and get confused why it happens.
I’m not sure if I buy that - Apple makes millions of iPhones every year, shaving off a part from the BOM has huge impact. I worked in manufacturing for 10 years where we made 6 million things per week. It was a big deal.
Can confirm. I use to work in hardware before and the pressure was to reduce BOM costs whenever possible and compensate via firmware. BOM cost is also why Apple's top €1000 device is stuck with an 18W "fast charger" while the competition is eons ahead. If they can save money and line their margins and people will still buy it why not do it?
Except, long press has been a gesture since the earliest days of iOS. They’re simply reverting back.
I think you’re correct that cost was a factor, but more likely that the marginally utility of force touch over long-press wasn’t worth the trade-off. (Both gestures have to be learned, but force touch is faster once learned. But probably not enough people used it to justify the extra layer of technology.)
