Apple previewed iOS 10 last week, and made it available to developers for testing, so of course, we put it on our daily drive iPhone 6s Plus. Now we’re sharing a number of short “how to’s” with our readers so they’ll know what to expect when the new operating system is released in the fall.
This tip has the standard “iPhone 6s/6s Plus Only” disclaimer, as it required 3D Touch. The feature will also be available on the upcoming “iPhone 7” handsets.
Pause or Cancel an App Download Using 3D Touch in iOS 10
Users have always been able to easily pause an in-progress download of an app in iOS 9 by simply tapping the app’s icon to pause it, and tapping it again to resume it. However, actually cancelling the download adds another couple of steps to the process. Users have had to hold on the app’s icon until it enters “wiggle mode,” and then tap the “X” on the icon to delete the app. Occasionally that is a trick all in itself with 3D Touch.
iOS 10 makes it easier to pause, restart and cancel downloads, as it’s all accomplished via 3D Touch.
Simply press and hold on the icon of the app that is being downloaded to your iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus, to activate the 3D Touch Action Menu for the downloading app. As shown in the above left screenshot, you’ll see two handy options in the menu. “Pause Download,” and “Cancel Download.” (It’s pretty self-explanatory what those two options do, right?)
If you’ve paused a download, and want to restart it, just long press the app’s icon again, and then tap “Resume Download” in the Quick Action menu.
iOS 10 adds a number of new 3D Touch features to the operating system, and we’ll be showing you more in the coming days. We’ve already covered how to share an app using 3D Touch in a previous post.
