Multi-touch: Many questions to one desire....

[Ortwin Regel]

On 3/4/08, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer <mickey at openmoko.org> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> I have thought a bit about multitouch and its possible usecases and the
> longer
> I think about it the less exciting I find it on a mobile phone.
>
> The technology per se is great and I'm sure it will allow for great
> innovation
> among UI's on large monitors, tablets, and even desks.
>
> However, on small screen systems such as the Neo (or even the iPhone) --
> what
> do you want to do with it? The ubiquitous zooming and rotating examples are
> not convincing me at all. With some clever state logic you can zoom and
> rotate very efficient on unitouch systems.
>
> So... where are those usecases that apply to a phone?
>
> :M:
>

If there will ever be a dedicated OpenMoko gaming device, it needs a
multitouch screen. However, with a phone, even if it is a fully
featured pocket computer, I can't think of many things where it would
be useful, either. Zooming and rotating should be very doable with one
finger and some thinking. In fact, much of this thinking was already
done on this list months ago.

When multitouch screens become cheap and easy to get, of course one
should be included in every Openmoko device. For now it seems like a
very low priority thing. We haven't even begun to explore the
potential of a unitouch screen!

I don't want much right clicking on my phone. However, if it ever
becomes useful/necessary somewhere, you can always assign it to
AUX+tap.