Slightly related but a feature that I miss is the short lived "Air View" in Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5. It allows you to trigger actions by hovering your finger above the screen.
Samsung implementation was a bit gimmicky, gimmicks were the hallmark of Samsung during that time, but it is extremely useful for one thing: hover targets on web pages. It actually makes sites that are completely unusable on other phones usable again, and not only that, it is very intuitive.
And the best part is that it costs next to nothing to make and it doesn't take any space or make anything more fragile, if I am not mistaken it is just a few tweaks on the way the capacitive touchscreen sensor is driven. So why not keep it? UI wise Samsung was a bit clunky but it doesn't mean it doesn't have potential.
3D touch on the other hand is probably a bit more expensive as it requires extra components (pressure sensor). Also, pressure sensitive devices have a long history of being failures, but contactless tech is used all the time, the closest would be digitizers, they all support hovering and it is put to good use. I don't have anything against 3D touch, I think it is nice to have and cheap, the ability to use your phone as a scale is also a nice gimmick but between 3D touch and hovering, I would have bet on hovering. In the end, we have neither...
Samsung implementation was a bit gimmicky, gimmicks were the hallmark of Samsung during that time, but it is extremely useful for one thing: hover targets on web pages. It actually makes sites that are completely unusable on other phones usable again, and not only that, it is very intuitive.
And the best part is that it costs next to nothing to make and it doesn't take any space or make anything more fragile, if I am not mistaken it is just a few tweaks on the way the capacitive touchscreen sensor is driven. So why not keep it? UI wise Samsung was a bit clunky but it doesn't mean it doesn't have potential.
3D touch on the other hand is probably a bit more expensive as it requires extra components (pressure sensor). Also, pressure sensitive devices have a long history of being failures, but contactless tech is used all the time, the closest would be digitizers, they all support hovering and it is put to good use. I don't have anything against 3D touch, I think it is nice to have and cheap, the ability to use your phone as a scale is also a nice gimmick but between 3D touch and hovering, I would have bet on hovering. In the end, we have neither...