Amazon Video, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive for iOS update with 3D Touch support
Amazon Video, Microsoft OneDrive & Google Drive for iOS update with 3D Touch [u] — Amazon, Google, and Microsoft on Tuesday updated key iOS apps with support for 3D Touch on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus …
Context & Ripple Effects
When Apple unveiled the three-level pressure-sensing display on the iPhone 6s in September, the feature lived mostly in first-party software — the company's own Pages, Keynote, and Numbers update in October was the template for what 3D Touch integration looked like. Tuesday's updates change that: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have each shipped 3D Touch support in flagship iOS apps within weeks of the hardware launch.
The significance is competitive signaling rather than any single feature. Three rivals that normally compete on cloud storage and streaming are converging on the same Apple-platform gesture, which turns 3D Touch adoption into table stakes rather than a differentiator.
First-order effects
- Owners of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus gain pressure-based quick actions in Amazon Video, Microsoft OneDrive, and Google Drive, shortening paths to common tasks like resuming playback or opening recent files.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft treats this as a platform commitment rather than a one-off, following up within two months with 3D Touch quick actions across its Office for iOS apps; other large iOS developers face the same expectation from users who now see it in competing apps.
Third-order effects
- The pattern shows how new iPhone input capabilities propagate: Apple seeds the API with first-party apps, then tier-one third-party developers legitimize it — and once Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all adopted a gesture, it effectively becomes part of the iOS baseline every app is measured against.
The trend: Following the iPhone 6s launch, major third-party developers are adopting 3D Touch at launch-cycle speed, converting Apple's hardware gestures into an expected layer of the iOS app standard.