HTC Hero has multi-touch. SDK support?

[CraigsRace]

So the latest Android phone now officially has multi-touch support.
Ref: http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/htc-hero-in-graphite

I know it is not a Google Experience phone, however, can we please now
have multi touch support in the SDK? ....pleeeeease! :)

[Kaj Bjurman]

Doesn't apple have a multitouch patent?

[John Smith]

2009/7/1 Kaj Bjurman <kaj.b...@gmail.com>

Doesn't apple have a multitouch patent?

Was this before or after laptops started having touch pads that are multitouch compatible?

[Kaj Bjurman]

The patent is for usage on touch screens. The patent was filed in
2008:

http://mashable.com/2009/01/26/apple-multi-touch-patent/


On 1 Juli, 09:13, John Smith <deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/1 Kaj Bjurman <kaj.bjur...@gmail.com>

[Paul Kilgo]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 3:12 AM, Kaj Bjurman <kaj.b...@gmail.com> wrote:

The patent is for usage on touch screens. The patent was filed in
2008:

Couldn't you feasibly implement multitouch in a different way and be legally sound? I always wondered where this patent left Android -- meaning would there never be another touchscreen multitouch device so long as the patent holder is still living?

If this is the case wouldn't the patent also be way too general?

--
--Paul

[Mike Hearn]

HTC may have licensed the patents, or this may simply be a screwup by
Orange.

Since Android launched I've been consistently amazed at how inaccurate
and bogus operator specification pages are. They're apparently created
by people with no ability to even read what they wrote. For instance
that page mentions the touch screen three times, has "MP3 player" and
"Music player" as two separate items, and says the phone is "Java
capable" which is meaningless and frankly misleading as operators have
been advertising "Java capable" to mean "J2ME capable" for a long time
which Android is not.

In short, don't believe anything you see written down by a mobile
operator.

[CraigsRace]

It's not an error. Here is a video of the HTC Hero, you can clearly
see the multi touch support (zooming): http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html

Back on topic. Will the Android SDK support multi touch?

[John Smith]

2009/7/1 CraigsRace <crai...@gmail.com>

It's not an error.  Here is a video of the HTC Hero, you can clearly
see the multi touch support (zooming):  http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html

Back on topic.  Will the Android SDK support multi touch?

What HTC apps support multi-touch, and is the source available?

[Al Sutton]

The patent, if granted, would only valid in the US, so there are no
issues that would stop a far eastern OEM producing a device for a non-
US carrier.

Al.

On Jul 1, 2:27 pm, John Smith <deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/1 CraigsRace <craig...@gmail.com>

[Kaj Bjurman]

I think it has been granted, and they have probably filed the patent
to other countries as well. (But companies can still license it from
apple)

[Disconnect]

First, patents are off topic. (And potentially damaging to what google
engineers can do or work on, regardless of validity, etc etc etc. No,
really.)

Second, IIRC the patent is -specific- gestures tied to -specific-
actions. Lots of devices have multitouch using other gestures. This is
probably one of them.

[CraigsRace]

Back on topic, and I'll make it a multiple choice question (in a hope
it will get answered).

Does anyone know if the Android SDK will support multi-touch:
A) In the next month
B) In the next 6 months
C) In the next year
D) Multi-touch is still being discussed
E) Multi-touch will not be supported for the foreseeable future
F) Not allowed to talk about multi-touch
?

Thanks.

On Jul 2, 7:28 am, Disconnect <dc.disconn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First, patents are off topic. (And potentially damaging to what google
> engineers can do or work on, regardless of validity, etc etc etc. No,
> really.)
>
> Second, IIRC the patent is -specific- gestures tied to -specific-
> actions. Lots of devices have multitouch using other gestures. This is
> probably one of them.
>

[Ted Chien]

And Apple is been sued by the patent:

http://www.emc.com.tw/eng/news_1_1.asp?id=71

EMC has won several lawsuits with other companies on the multi-touch
patent.

[Chaue Shen]

What about those leaked Hero roms? Can you get the muti-touch off of
them?

[CraigsRace]

Thanks Ted. With the news of EMC suing Apple, Apple threatening to
sue Palm, ... I think I have my answer about multi-touch on Android.
Fingers crossed this silliness will blow over and we can start
developing cool apps using multi-touch.

Cheers.

[Al Sutton]

Kaj,

In most countries software methods (such as multi-touch) can not be
patented.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4655955.stm for the result
of a recent attempt to allow them in europe.

Al.

[Disconnect]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 8:10 PM, CraigsRace<crai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Back on topic, and I'll make it a multiple choice question (in a hope
> it will get answered).
>
> Does anyone know if the Android SDK will support multi-touch:
> A) In the next month
> B) In the next 6 months
> C) In the next year
> D) Multi-touch is still being discussed
> E) Multi-touch will not be supported for the foreseeable future
> F) Not allowed to talk about multi-touch
> ?
>

Last time it came up (when Luke did his psuedotouch hack) the answer
was - patents/etc aside - mostly a mix of D and E. Specifically,
they'd love to see proposals and ideas for SDK support (including
clean/reasonable fallback for single touch, the psuedotouch G1 does
and proper multiple-simul-locations multitouch) and would prolly help,
a little, with the implementation.

So .. G) We'd love to hear actual proposals but its OSS so "do it yourself"

[CraigsRace]

I had a look at Lukes "hack". Very clever, smart guy! Except when I
ran the multi-touch visualizer on my G1 it never actually showed me
multi-touching (he did explain in his blog that the G1 hardware didn't
support multi-touch very well).

It would be really easy to implement a multi-touch SDK interface, they
could do any of these:
- Double the size of the float[] returned on onSensorChanged
- Return a different sensor number for each touch
- Add a new interface method.

:)

Anyway, my multi-touch plans have been shelved until I hear more news.

Thanks to all for replying.

Cheers.

On Jul 2, 10:37 pm, Disconnect <dc.disconn...@gmail.com> wrote:

[CraigsRace]

FYI: The next SDK release (2.0 "Donut") is rumoured to include multi-
touch support. Woohoo! http://phandroid.com/2009/07/25/morning-donuts/

[Romain Guy]

Donut is NOT Android 2.0 and there's no multi-touch support in Donut.

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 3:55 PM, CraigsRace<crai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FYI:  The next SDK release (2.0 "Donut") is rumoured to include multi-
> touch support.  Woohoo!  http://phandroid.com/2009/07/25/morning-donuts/
> >
>

--
Romain Guy
Android framework engineer
roma...@android.com

Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time
to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on
public forums, where I and others can see and answer them

[patrick aljord]

On Jul 25, 6:26 pm, Romain Guy <romain...@google.com> wrote:
> Donut is NOT Android 2.0 and there's no multi-touch support in Donut.
>

Will 2.0 have multi-touch though?

[Evan Charlton]

2.0 has not been announced, no matter what any bloggers say. Android
2.0 could be 10 years from now for all we know.

Evan Charlton

[CraigsRace]

Thanks Romain. Sad news, but at least it is news. Apologies for
spreading an incorrect rumour.

Please keep us posted on any multi-touch developments.

Cheers.

On Jul 26, 9:26 am, Romain Guy <romain...@google.com> wrote:
> Donut is NOT Android 2.0 and there's no multi-touch support in Donut.
>

> On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 3:55 PM, CraigsRace<craig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > FYI:  The next SDK release (2.0 "Donut") is rumoured to include multi-
> > touch support.  Woohoo!  http://phandroid.com/2009/07/25/morning-donuts/
>
> --
> Romain Guy
> Android framework engineer

> romain...@android.com

[Hekki]

Hello,

Actually you can use the multitouch from the SDK :

http://www.alicesbiscuit.com/android-sdk-multitouch-workaround.html

It's not perfect but it works for me.

Yahel

[CraigsRace]

Just tried logging the event.toString() and doing multi-touch. Never
got any x2,y2 information. :(

On G1, Android 1.5.