The G1’s Deepest, Darkest Secret: Hidden Multitouch

Some resourceful folks at the #android IRC channel and RyeBrye, after realizing that the G1’s Synaptics touch screen might be able to handle multiple inputs, say they were able to re-enable some commented-out code in the phone’s touchscreen driver and log some multitouch gestures. The lack of multitouch in the first Android phone was a minor disappointment, albeit an understandable one — encroaching on Apple’s software patent territory probably wasn’t on the top of Google’s to-do list. But this wouldn’t be the first time HTC has released a phone with hidden multitouch, and it is without a doubt the most intriguing.

The revelation that the Diamond has latent multitouch (not to be confused with the “Covert Multitouch”, a notorious and questionably legal pickup move pioneered by our own Adrian Covert) on its bezel was more interesting that it was exciting — the likelyhood that anyone would develop an app to utilise it was pretty low. With Android, we can at least hope the the flourishing dev community and open software design will be enough to lead to a simple patch and some app love for this capability. [RyeBrye via Crunchgear]