Fantastical adds enhanced support for 3D Touch with peek and pop events
Fantastical 2, the popular calendar application for the iPhone (and iPad, albeit in a separate app), has received revamped support for Apple’s 3D Touch display in the form of a new peek and pop gesture.
Peek and pop, the gesture-driven UI feature that allows iPhone 6s (and 6s Plus) owners to press down on an element in order to expand its content, is one of the finest features of Apple’s 3D Touch display. It also features to a slightly lesser degree in OS X (thanks to the Force Touch trackpad) in the form of dictionary definition lookups, and hyperlink previews. On iOS, though, peek and pop is far more prominent.
Fantastical is indeed the latest application to add a peek and pop gesture into its software. Now, users of Fantastical 2.5.2 can perform a peek and pop press on their 3D Touch display in order to preview both events and reminders. Of course, you’ll only be able to perform such gestures on an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus handset (so far, 3D Touch has yet to expand beyond Apple’s current-generation smartphone).
Fortunately for the rest of us, Fantastical 2.5.2 doesn’t just add 3D Touch optimizations; a bunch of further changes have been made in the update, including:
- Added customization settings for Fantastical’s Apple Watch complication to show the current date or the next upcoming event or reminder
- Search now more clearly shows when there are no matches
- Today widget now respects system text size setting
- Fixed an issue where opening a location in Google Maps would sometimes not show the correct result
- Fixed an issue where completed reminders would appear for too long on Apple Watch
- Fixed not being able to change the repeat rule for some events
Though, as I’m sure you’ll agree, Fantastical’s peek and pop gesture is the best addition made in the update.
Optimizations for 3D Touch seem to be hitting the App Store hard and fast at the minute. Recently, both Waze, the free navigation app, and WhatsApp, the popular Facebook-owned instant messaging (IM) application, received support for a range 3D Touch gestures. It’s thought that the technology will make its way to Apple’s iPad line in 2016, even though many iPad Pro owners have voiced disappointment at the 12.9-inch tablet’s lack of support for 3D Touch.
So, Fantastical 2 is available on the App Store for $4.99, and it’s optimized for the iPhone/iPod touch and Apple Watch. As mentioned, a separate iPad version is also available. Check out the new peek and pop gesture, and see what you think.
