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Google uses software magic to replicate Apple’s 3D touch on Pixel 4
August 08, 2025
Google’s recentPixel feature dropbegan rolling out yesterday, and it introduces a few new features — anda few regressions— including a newMotion Sensegesture, improveddark modefunctionality, and the ability to quickly launchGoogle Pay. But one new feature Google didn’t explicitly advertise includes advancements to long-press functionality, effectively adding Apple’s 3D Touch feature toPixel 4devices.
Though Google didn’t bring this feature to the forefront of its marketing, and it hasn’t even released an official name for it, the company briefly explained it on thefeature drop’s support page. In addition to the standard long press, Pixel 4 users can now “firmly press” on their device’s display to bring up that same context menu even faster.
For example, you can press-and-hold on the launcher to pull up the customization screen, but force-pressing it brings up that menu much faster. This also works in applications likeGoogle Photos,WhatsApp,Slack,Pocket, etc. As far as we can tell, in our brief time using the feature, it should work anywhere a traditional long press would.
What’s interesting about this is Google was able to implement it without the use of specialized hardware. Apple needed to develop a new haptic engine to achieve 3D Touch functionality on theiPhone, while Google brought a similar implementation to the Pixel 4 in a software update.
Read also:Apple in 2020: Can’t stay in the ivory tower forever
Google didn’t provide a tutorial on how to use this 3D Touch-like functionality, but it works on our Pixel 4 devices. We initially heard Google was developingan answer to 3D Touchin early 2019, but we expected the feature to launch to more fanfare.
As of right now, it is only available on Pixel 4 devices, but since it only requires a software update, it’s feasible other OEMs could implement this 3D Touch competitor on their devices with minimal effort.
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