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Eight apps optimized for 3D Touch on your new iPhone 6S

Eight apps optimized for 3D Touch on your new iPhone 6S

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So, you've got a new iPhone 6S. You've turned it on; maybe you've restored it from iCloud. You firmly press on the display to try this new, magical, 3D Touch feature (the first time, you probably do it wrong, and your apps wiggle just like they used to). You can "peek" at Mail! Cool.

Now what?

It's not just Apple's native apps that will work with 3D Touch; today a bunch of third-party app makers started rolling out updated versions of their apps that support the feature as well. Below is a list of apps you can reliably use with 3D Touch. Keep in mind, these aren't the best apps, per se — it's too soon to tell which ones are actually the most useful. But these will give you an idea of how app makers are thinking about using 3D Touch.

Another note: if you use Spotlight search to find apps, as I often do, 3D Touch won't work in the Spotlight results list. You have to press on the app on the home screen.

Instagram

Instagram is one of the few third-party apps we've seen so far that utilizes the "peek and pop" feature of 3D Touch, which means you can see a preview of the actual photos within the app when you're on someone's profile page, not just get a sub-menu of actions from the app icon.

Pinterest

Using 3D Touch in Pinterest reveals trending boards and the ability to create a new board right from the app icon. However, taking action within the app is a little awkward in this first implementation — Pin, Heart, and Send options pop up when you press on individual photos, but doing that requires two hands (one to utilize 3D Touch and the other to select an option) and seems to take you to an app page to do it, anyway.

3D Touch Pinterest

Dropbox

Dropbox also shows you a preview of a photo when you press on it within a folder, as well as what's in the folder from the Files menu. From the app icon itself, 3D Touch offers search, recently added or renamed images and — the best part — a quick upload option.

WeChat

China's most popular messaging app gives you a quick look at your chats by pressing on a chatline within the app, and lets you start a new chat or quickly pull up your QR code directly from the app icon. Oh, and if your WeChats are starting to distract you during the work day? You can mute it for an hour using 3D Touch, too.

Shazam

3D Touch in Shazam pretty much ensures you'll never miss a Shazam opportunity because it took you too damn long to open the app. Press on the app icon, and you'll have the option to start Shazam-ing immediately.

3D Touch Shazam

Hipstamatic

The We're-Not-Instagram photo capture and editing app has actually created a pretty handy app menu for 3D touch: a press on the app icon offers the ability to shoot in different modes right away — Sunset, Portrait, and "Blogger" mode — as well as a shortcut to editing the last photo you took.

Carrot Weather ($3.99)

Carrot Weather technically has 3D Touch capabilities, but it's pretty basic: pressing on the app icon shows only options for search and location(s), rather then a glimpse of what the weather or temperature actually is. Naturally, the app makers would probably rather have you opening the app for that than eschewing the app experience entirely. (Also, pro tip, it is not too difficult to look out the window and see what the weather is, too.)

The Night Sky ($.99)

I can't say I frequently assess the stargazing conditions in my area of the planet, but maybe we should all spend a little more time looking up rather than down at our phones. The Night Sky combines the two, giving you instant data on the constellations up above and, yup, rating your local stargazing conditions by the hour. The 3D Touch feature in this app gives you shortcuts to the latest news from NASA, a search tool, and quick access to the live sky view.