Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

If you can get the first point click and the middle in between the 2nd and 1st... than you can calculate the 2nd, no? :-)

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

@lendurhenry

Did you think of something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQTE7Dkhq3U

or better this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvxqIcKzVeY

If those aren't fake I'd agree that it could add a little "touch" to the N900's handling.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Assumption that resistive means no multitouch is soooooo incorrect...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/27/s...ere-awed-agai/
http://www.touchuserinterface.com/20...lti-touch.html
http://www.umpcportal.com/2009/02/mu...-touchscreens/

Resistive screen is so much better than capacitive...

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

I think I know how they did it. And this gives one more idea to add for brainstorm. Or actually it extends one of my ideas. Software has to detect quick movement of the touch, quicker than you can possibly drag it. This means only one – you made second touch without raising the first finger. You can calculate where the second touch is because this single position moved quickly half way there. Now you know two positions and you can always calculate where the second touch moves by assuming you don’t move the first touch. Very clever :rolleyes:

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Did you play the liqflow (can you say) app yet?

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Yes I tried it now. It proves nothing. You can see from thin line where the calculated position moves between two fingers.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

multi touch ok... apart of games and zoom, is there another use-case?

I have multitouch at my netbook and guess what... I am using gestures as they dont depend on scale... zooming in or out from larger or smaller than your screen with multitouch just sucks. Implementing more gestures instead of fancying multitouch would be a good brainstorm...

I tested iphones several times and several revisions and apart of the amount of apps ready yet there is nothing I will miss if I dont have one.

As the N900 is not capable of real multitouch as its resistive screen does not support it (future devices may support it without using a stylus unfriendly capacitive screen, the technology is close to ready), this idea is more like "how to improve multitouch like behaviour on the n900" and thats even more useless than capacitive screens allready are.

Get handwriting recognition and gestures more common and it will be a lot better than any iphone like UI!

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

What is the deal with multitouch?

I've held multitouch devices before and frankly, save for the wow factor, it is useless.

a) You need both hands to do it right. That means changing grip. If you don't it goes all wrong.

b) Save from zooming, it's useless. Drag-while-holding is a gimmick - a gesture like the ones you can do with one finger.

c) Zooming and dragging with multitouch requires precision as a large image is very sensitive to positioning.

d) Can't zoom on small elements. If an image has been scaled down to 1/10 of the screen or less it's stuck. You can't put 2 fingers in there. You have to zoom the whole control and the grab the image, then scroll the page back. This dedicates the screen. Very large elements take forever to zoom out while you pinch the screen looking stupid. With gestures, point-and-swirl.

e) No stylus. If it's small you're *ed.

f) OSK (On-screen keyboard) is incredibly hard to use despite what your iPhone toting friends said. Fingers obstruct keys. Stylus doesn't. Also, zooming each key to you see what you type is a good idea, but it's a workaround. You can't see and you can't feel the keyboard. I'm 3 times faster on the N900 than any of the IPhone toting buddies.

So, what the heck for? We're NOT discussing the advantages of capacitive, which includes brighter screen, or the equivalent savings for same illumination or feather touch, we discuss multitouch.

Other than showoff and a couple of games you play BECAUSE they are multitouch, why?

Rotating with stylus is soooo easy. Anyone used Google Sketchup? Click the object you want to rotate. Sliiide the mouse along one axis, then start drawing a circle. The object 3d-rotates where you want. Want to resize? Click R, then grab and drag a corner. Want to scale? Use the center instead of a corner.

There are many things that can be done with zero multitouch. All interfaces ever, even movies (save for one or two lately) have no multitouch. It could be so cool, and instead of pushing for something really cool, like graphics, gestures, accelerometer-assisted GUI, shading, shadowing, physics interface you want to pit the development crews to solve finger dance-dance-revolution.

I can list 5000 things I'd rather have before multitouch.

Like a nice, finished-look interface.

Like physics for windows in the UI. Sliding, knocking, sticking, bouncing.

I'd like shaking the device to clear all open applications. When cluttered, just close the kbd and shake it back to its senses.

I'd like to scale an image by holding the cam button and sliding.

I'd like to rotate an image by holding the cam button all the way and sliding.

I'd like slanting the device to skip in songs IF LEVEL so it can used in pocket.

Don't worry, I can produce the rest of 4994 items.

Multitouch. Hrmpf.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

Sometimes I see some of those replies just as if people are trying to feel feeling better in spite of the fact that there is a missing feature.

I agree with ndi with the fact that there might be things of higher priority than adding multi-touch to N900. However, why not do it and let applications use it if they want?

I can think of applications that could benefit from multi-touch: music related ones. Play more than one note at the same time. Play a chord. Play the drums (there is already a plea to port hydrogen to N900). Use one, two, three fingers as expression controllers for a synth.

I think that the fact that there are more than one way of doing something doesn't imply that one of them should be automatically discarded.

This same discussion could have been applied when people were discussing if a mouse with two buttons would be better than a one button mouse. Or if a touch screen is really better than a regular screen and a mouse, etc. All advances have their own pros and cons. I, for one, would like to have multi-touch potential on my N900.

Re: Multi-touch functionality
 

There is one big problem with fake multitouch on resistive screens. The amount of pressure on each point moves the barycenter, so it's most often not exactly in the middle between both points.
This makes it hard to implement precise multitouch operations.