Apple didn’t even support “long press” as a standard input model until the iPhone 6S because the UX sucks. They did it “the Apple way” with 3D Touch but we all know how that shook out. Now we just have normal Android-inspired long press.

Cute easter eggs are one thing, but genuine functionality behind hidden inputs is like the antithesis of the iPhone.

Apple refused to support “long press” as a standard input model for years and years because the UX sucks and it still sucks today. There’s zero discoverability and the contextual nature of the input means every app (and different elements within the same app) all do something different with the input. Apple compromised with a standard context menu that pops up when you long press an element (e.g. the copy-paste menu), but when 3D touch was introduced iOS went full Android.

Why bother constraining actions to standard UX models when you can create nice, clean interfaces and hide functionality behind long-press inputs that the user will never know exist unless they read documentation (if it exists) or stumble upon it.

There’s a great article from The Hearing Review. TL;DR it actively reduces the signal reaching your eardrums and provides a noticeable level of hearing protection.