Multi-touch à la iPhone - possible on WM5?

[WhiteMonkey]

I love the "multi-touch" idea used on the demos for Apple's new iPhone (for an example check out the photos demo (http://www.apple.com/iphone/phone/) where the white circles represent finger touches).

Basically it allows you to zoom in by placing two fingers on the touch screen and sliding them together - sliding them apart zooms out.

Neat idea, but is it even technically possible to do this on HTC devices and/or in WM5? I haven't done any development using M$ APIs in years: as I recall the "mouse" X and Y coords were available - but I can't think of how you could possibly access two seperate "touches"/mouse pointers... AFAIK Windoze "averages" the two, or treats it like you moved your (single) finger really fast from one point to another.

Any XDA developers out there who may be able to shed some light on the technical feasability of reproducing multi-touch on HTC/WM5?

[hanmin]

If you look at the talk by Steve Jobs, the multi touch is a relatively new technology/concept that Apple is proud of (among the mouse in PC and touch-pad-wheel-thing in iPod). So, I think it may not be possible to do that in WM5, as the hardware maybe hardwired to give just two variables, x and y (eg, two wire out?). And, IF the hardware is able to give you all the coordinates of the 'touched' area, you will need to have a very good algorithm to determine if you have touched the screen with two fingers or you just have a very big finger. It needs to gather all the points together and see if there are points joining together to make it a big finger or two fingers.

[philippe_b]

If you look closely you will note that there's no way you will have such a system on WM5. The iPhone uses a completely different kind of screen. The screen that all of us have on our PDA are using the same technology as a touchpad on a ladtop. There is simply no way you couuld use two fingers because the system detects a pressure on the area annd not to. From people who approach and used the iPhone yesterday night, the screen is like the PSP screen and the system will be more like an electromagnetic field !
That's for the first part, the second one is that Apple has patented all of that technology and I'm not quite sure they are likely to release it to WM5 devices.

If some of you are a bit disappointed, look at what the presentation ojn multitouch interface made at the TED last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcKqyn-gUbY