Originally Posted by TiagoTiago

multitouch is quite helpful for gaming, and it does allow for certain interface approaches not possible with single touch

Originally Posted by PMaff

Afaics the multitouch is limited by the size of the window that is
displayed (at max the screen size of N900).
Which will also result in using multitouch multiple
times for certain zoom factors.
In that case there is no difference to buttons or other zoom
utilities.
Correct?

Originally Posted by PMaff

The comparison to TV remote is wrong:
better:
why do we need a TV remote that you can only use with gloves made of anti-static conductive foam and where you have to press two buttons at once to get one action.

Sorry but I never needed Multitouch up to now.
In my opinion a user interface that needs two fingers instead
of one is somewhat broken.

It seems that resistive touchscreen can do multitouch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistive_touchscreen
I for myself do not see the need for it.

Why I rather like resistive touchscreen:
"Resistive touchscreen technology works well with almost any stylus-like object. In some circumstances, this is more desirable than a capacitive touchscreen, which has to be operated with a capacitive pointer, such as a bare finger."
and
"Capacitive sensors detect anything which is conductive or having dielectric properties.
...
A standard stylus cannot be used for capacitive sensing, unless it is tipped with some form of conductive material, such as anti-static conductive foam.

Capacitive touchscreens are more expensive to manufacture and offer a lesser degree of accuracy than resistive touchscreens.[5]

Capacitive touchscreens cannot be used with gloves, and can fail to sense correctly with even the smallest amounts of water - you could use a resistive screen briefly in the rain, or with wet hands, not so with a capacitive screen.
..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitive_sensing

I think this is a huge disadvantage for capacitive touchscreens
as I always want the choice between stylus, my finger and a glove
(if it is cold outside).
Needing an additional property ("having dielectric properties")
is senseless for such devices.

Originally Posted by ysss

1. It doesn't have to be linear.
2. They can make use of acceleration to control the scale, just like on mice.

ps: try one.

Originally Posted by allnameswereout

Nokia's hack is to swirl clockwise or anti clockwise which 1) takes longer 2) is a novel movement/gesture normally not made (circles) which might be related to that it doesn't work properly (not always detected its supposed to be zooming).

My mouse requires 2 fingers at least. I find your statement hilarious given Macs for a long time only had 1 mouse button. a traditional trackpad or trackpoint as found on a ThinkPad also requires 2 (1 for pointing, 1 for clicking) whereas there is less movement by the hand in the case of newer ThinkPads as well as newer Apple devices sporting one.

Nokia N8 has a solution for this which is provided in selected countries (e.g. Finland). Since I'm already using a bare finger to interact with N900, I wouldn't mind being forced having to use a bare finger (ie. a capacitive screen).

The latest Nokia devices seem to have a capacitive screen, including the new N-Series flagship N8. So unfortunately for you it appears Nokia is drifting away from resisitive. Same happened to Palm, Apple, et al.