For me its the ‘Knock Code’ that LG had on their phones (I really wish LG still made at least the V series phones)
Basically there was a four-square area and you set up a sequence of where you would tap to unlock the phone. That set of squares was only shown when you set up the code
Then, to unlock your phone, you would tap those areas in the sequence you set up (even with the screen off).
Fingerprint readers are nice, but I really do miss the knock code
Edit: did find this article with a way to do the knock code, but if done wrong, could brick your phone I guess.
Plus, article is from 2014. When I looked at XDA’s info on it (they also being the developers) it looks like development on it is over, but individual modules may or may not still be supported by their devs
I think there were two issues with it.
They never really had a good UI indication of what elements are 3d touchable. This meant the average user never really used the feature too much and it was frustrating for some to try to find functionality that was “hidden” visually from the UI.
Also the phones with 3d touch had significantly worse battery life than in the following years. Apparently the pressure sensing hardware took up a lot of space in the phone. I’m sure they could have made them a bit thicker, but this is Apple we’re talking about.
Force touch still exists on the mac, and it has kinda the same UI issue going on. I’m personally not a huge fan of it though as even if you know you want to force touch something, you can’t really immediately do it. You first have to tap/click on the element and then apply more pressure, which makes the process a bit cumbersome.