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Will the iPhone ever be multi-touch?

S

ss957916

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
861
0
I was thinking about how annoying carrying out many simple tasks on the iPhone are.

For example, I was playing a game the other day and wanted to increase the brightness, which meant quitting the game, tapping my way into Brightness, adjusting, then restarting my game. Annoying!

But if the phone was multi-touch rather than just 'dual-touch', there could be the option to, say, slide three fingers up and down the screen the adjust the brightness. Double-tap with three fingers to turn wifi on and off etc. etc.
 
Ummmmm, yeah..... I simply swipe my finger accross the top of my screen to open up SB settings where I can:
turn on and off 3g
turn on and off Bluetooth
adjust brightness
turn on and off wifi
power down

There are many other things I can do that I don't feel the need to post here. So no need to make the touch screen multi touch, just JB and you can have your cake and eat it too.
 
ss957916 said:
I was thinking about how annoying carrying out many simple tasks on the iPhone are.

For example, I was playing a game the other day and wanted to increase the brightness, which meant quitting the game, tapping my way into Brightness, adjusting, then restarting my game. Annoying!

But if the phone was multi-touch rather than just 'dual-touch', there could be the option to, say, slide three fingers up and down the screen the adjust the brightness. Double-tap with three fingers to turn wifi on and off etc. etc.
Click to expand...


The iPhone already has multitouch built it. Apple could offer more guestures if they wanted to but why would they when there is no need.
 
Two fingers *is* multi-touch. Multiple. More than one. Two. I bet the screen can track more than two fingers and it's an apple decision to do what they do, why not submit feedback on Apple's site?
 
Why stop at 3 fingers. There should be 4 fingers, 5, 6, and if you fist the phone, it shuts off.
 
markie said:
Two fingers *is* multi-touch. Multiple. More than one. Two. I bet the screen can track more than two fingers and it's an apple decision to do what they do, why not submit feedback on Apple's site?
Click to expand...

I don't want to get bogged down in semantics, but I would argue that multi means many (not simply more than one). You may care to read my original post where, to make my point clear, I used the term "dual-touch" in order to distinguish between the current input method and what I would consider to be true "multi-touch".
 
The iPhone can detect 5 or 6 separate fingers. I've done this when messing about on Pianist (Piano app if you don't know).

Your suggestion, while I know is just a quick example, won't be implemented because it may conflict with apps that may use that gesture.

I think a solution is either the much talked about multitasking, or simply being able to access the Settings app from anywhere.
 
ss, it's not semantics when you're using the term different from how the entire industry is using it. Everyone is referring to two fingers as multi-touch. Apple, Google (Android), etc. Simple. Because multi just means more than one. And again, I'm pretty sure the screen is capable of tracking more than two fingers - Apple just hasn't implemented it to do anything (likely because they see it as too clunky on such a small device...). Send them you feedback!
 
It already uses three fingers.


7e96c00f.jpg
 
ss957916 said:
Is it? I can't think of any times it recognises more than two fingers. (unlike my MBP that has three and four finger swipe etc.)
Click to expand...

The iPhone's screen is so much smaller than a Mac, yet thank goodness we have multi-touch. And now people want more fingers to interact on a 3.5" screen? :rolleyes:
 
I think

We might be confusing multi touch and multitask! I have played games that aloud mr to use 4 fingers such as tap tap revenge. Changing brightness etc thinking ts wants mutasling which is why I jb.
 
no, i think he is talking about multi touch, because he talks about sliding 3 fingers to get to a brightness option.
 
army91c said:
Ummmmm, yeah..... I simply swipe my finger accross the top of my screen to open up SB settings where I can:
turn on and off 3g
turn on and off Bluetooth
adjust brightness
turn on and off wifi
power down

There are many other things I can do that I don't feel the need to post here. So no need to make the touch screen multi touch, just JB and you can have your cake and eat it too.
Click to expand...



Would help if it was easy to jail break them, I spent 2 hours trying to do my 3gs, in the end I had to upgrade the 3.1.3 to make the dam thing start.
 
ss957916 said:
I don't want to get bogged down in semantics, but I would argue that multi means many (not simply more than one).
Click to expand...

Ok. Here are 3 examples of programs where I can touch the screen with 3 fingers and have all the points recognized at the same time.

The iPhone is multitouch. There you go, photo proof.

Now, I understand what you actually want. You're asking for system-wide OS gestures. That's a good idea. But you can't just say "multi touch" and expect everyone to know that you meant "gestures." I mean, I got what you meant, but I'm not surprised there was confusion here.
 

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Small White Car said:
Ok. Here are 3 examples of programs where I can touch the screen with 3fingers and have all the points recognized at the same time.

The iPhone is multitouch. There you go, photo proof.

Now, I understand what you actually want. You're asking for system-wide OS gestures. That's a good idea. But you can't just use random words to describe it when those words already have another meaning.
Click to expand...

What is the first game? It looks like a game I used to play.
 
So the question is will app developers create gestures within their application?
Or will Apple create system wide gestures with 2+ fingers, that have an effect ni home/springboard, or even within an application?
 
I clicked on this topic knowing there'd be a Captain Obvious saying "thur alrdy is mult1tutch. What I wasn't expecting was there'd be 14 of those Captain Obviouses trying to sound smart by repeatedly saying the same thing.
 
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