T-Mobile capable of multi-touch?

[Aether]

you can find two different touch points with PicSay. try it on the dizzy feature. theres a slider at the bottom to create the effect on the picture above. if you just touch the picture by itself and move it, it moves around in the frame. but if you touch the slider to highlight it, and then touch and drag the picture, it lifts one layer of the picture and moves it around on top of the other layer to create the effect. its a totally different imput method accessible by touching multiple points. i can try to upload a video later but try it, it works.

[bhain3s]

this phone is basically a mini computer...thats what people dont realize...hahha i mean look at the desktop...

I think by jan 09 we will see what this phone is about. I think Google is giving iPhone all the last apps for the remainder of the year.

I mean what else could Google give them other than a new operating system. Soon Apple will be hanging by their balls asking google to do this and that for them.

Google will soon part from them and only focus on Android. Google isnt fooling anyone but the iphone users because in due time they will give a rats ass about them and only focus on android. WATCH and SEE.

completely off topic but I mean I could have told you guys months ago the phone had multi touch, I mean why couldn't it, it all is software based when you think about it...since the screen is capacity based it isnt hard to pick up two screen taps and somehow figure out the distance between the two points.

VTech computer engineer here...

...amd I like how google is using the parallax feature on the desktop, which really is a linux desktop on a small device...and before you know it, this thing will probably have a larger ram and etc

[drewer]

yes, as many of u r saying most ppl already know there is no hardware limitation for multi-touch, and yes apple has it copyrighted. BUT, if a programmer was to modify the driver, and somehow incorporate it in the UI, then it im pretty sure apple couldnt do anything about it as long as the programmer doesnt make any money/profit from making this modification, and under the rights of the app market, this modification would be allowed in the app market as well

[JCollum]

Like the previous poster said, Surface has multi-touch. Tablet PCs have multi-touch don't they? So this isn't an apple patent that's stopping it is it? I'm betting it's like stereo bluetooth, the ability is there, but they ran out of time to get the API right. Which I appreciate, I'd rather wait for a good API than have a bad one now.

Edit: "Patent experts contacted by Wired.com stressed that the patent office can take four or more years to grant patents, and Apple is far from certain to win these patents. Indeed, other companies, including BenQ-Siemens and Nokia, have also filed patent applications on a series of gestures and touch applications for multitouch devices. However, with more than 200 patent claims for the iPhone alone, including several multitouch-related patent applications, Apple is clearly seeking to control as much of the multitouch world as it can."

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscell...itouch_patents

[DiscoDapper]

@bhains - not sure where I read it (here or another forum) but supposedly there are two types of capacitive screens (one capable of multitouch and one not). Apparently HTC insisted on no multitouch for G1 in order to reserve the right to use one or the other type screen for G1 (depending on which is a better deal at the time).

Also, Synaptec owns the patents for multitouch screen, while Apple holds pattents for the GESTURES used on iPhone.

My thoughts exactly on minicomputer... but I think you are underestimating Apple. Remember, the iPhone is up for a hardware and software refresh next year as well, so who knows what it will bring to the table, but one thing is for sure... don't expect them to stand still.

[Vitaliy325]

Corect, me if i'm worng, but isn't "Surface" use different kind of technology to, pick up multi touch, isn't it more like cam/sensor cam based sytems, not capactive?

[hawtseks]

I don't see how the gestures can legally be patented anyway. It doesn't make much sense. I think I'm going to try to patent the wave, salute and middle finger, see what happens.

[ministersin]

OMG! G1 is capable of mulit-touch! I have no idea!

How come no one says this! You are the first guys to bring this information out to us!

(end of scaresom (spelling?))

Come on guys... you wrote the article as if we have no idea that G1 has multi-touch.

We all know G1 is capable of multi-touch and the only reason Google did not activate it on their G1 is because of the patents Apple have.

I am sure Google would love to have multi-touch but unable to do so. Now it's up to 3rd parties if they are willing to take on the project to make G1 capable of doing multi-touch and is willing to face a lawsuit with Apple.

The G1 is NOT capable of multi-touch. I don't know where this "everybody knows" crap comes from.
Synaptics touch screens have multi-touch capability, IF the manufacturer ordering the hardware pays extra to have the gestures supported on the equipment.


Multi-touch is determined by the Enhanced Gesture Recognition, and a multi-touch screen requires more system resources. Since the API does not include multi-touch at this time, the EGR for multi-touch would only cost HTC more and use up additional resources that are not required for the system.

http://www.synaptics.com/solutions/technology/gestures
http://www.synaptics.com/solutions/t...y/gestures/egr
and even a PDF on it:
http://www.synaptics.com/sites/defau...estures_pb.pdf

Even if Android plans to offer a multi-touch system they would roll out new hardware capable of it at that time, leaving previous hardware that does not meet the requirements on previous builds.

Look...I promise you...the HTC Dream, The T-Mobile G1 will NEVER be capable of multi-touch. At least not the one you are holding in your hand. They could produce new ones I suppose, but I'm sure they'll just move on to a new model.

As much as we talk about it, try to understand patent law, or show YouTube videos of people double tapping their solitare game (wtf?), it won't happen.

And that's OK. It's still a great phone.

Read the links.

Like John Stamos says...the more you know.
And then a star shoots across the screen

[ministersin]

From Synaptics for those who'd prefer not to visit:

"EGR gives customers THE OPTION to enable single-finger gestures (i.e., Tap, Double Tap, Pinch, Press, and Flick) as well as multi-finger gestures (e.g., Pinch) directly from Synaptics' touch module. NO ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE RECOGNITION IS REQUIRED on the host processor to implement these gestures."

This says that if the manufacturer wants a Synaptics pad with multi-touch, they can pay for it and have it. And Android wouldn't really have to do much to take advantage of it.

"Gestures have to be fine tuned for (and integrated with) the specific types of devices that they control. "

The HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 did NOT integrate these features.

[Ryan Gardner]

From Synaptics for those who'd prefer not to visit:

"EGR gives customers THE OPTION to enable single-finger gestures (i.e., Tap, Double Tap, Pinch, Press, and Flick) as well as multi-finger gestures (e.g., Pinch) directly from Synaptics' touch module. NO ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE RECOGNITION IS REQUIRED on the host processor to implement these gestures."

This says that if the manufacturer wants a Synaptics pad with multi-touch, they can pay for it and have it. And Android wouldn't really have to do much to take advantage of it.

"Gestures have to be fine tuned for (and integrated with) the specific types of devices that they control. "

The HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1 did NOT integrate these features.

The EGR stuff is done in the hardware, yeah, and they supposedly have an easy way to get at it - but since the phone gives us two fingers and tracks their positions anyway - it's not rocket science to implement multi-touch without having Synaptics spoon feed gestures to us.

I'm not quite sure how you think that quoting random marketing pages about what Synaptics says about the capabilities of their screens would trump what an actual person with access to the G1's actual hardware can show with basic tweaking of the driver.

I've proven in the debug logs that the phone tracks two fingers independently. I've shown a basic hackish implementation using the most quick-and-dirty-way possible I could find to show it being used...

Perhaps you should stop reading marketing materials and start looking at the actual device? Or maybe listening to people who spend their spare time hacking away at these devices?