14 DAY TRIAL // T-Mobile's G1 Android phone is a rather popular device, hence it is common knowledge that it came with a touchscreen but with no multitouch capabilities. This was and still is one of the downsides of the handset, yet there seems to be hope that something will change in the near future. One developer announced on the Web that it managed to come up with a little app that offered multitouch capabilities for the handset.
The creator of this small application is Luke Hutchinson, who announced that the software did not require any changes in the kernel and that only one Java system library was to undergo some modifications. One the other hand, we should notice that the multi-touch system is somehow limited because of the locking of the X and Y coordinates.
At the time the T-Mobile G1 was launched, its lack of multitouch capabilities was rumored to be caused by hardware limitations or by a missing software support. On the other hand, the Android platform was stated to feature multitouch support, yet Google was said to be willing to work on developing such software for compatible hardware devices.
Luke Hutchinson trusted that the G1 could come with more than single-touch capabilities, and worked on his own application that would allow for more than one finger to be used on the device's screen. The article he published comprised a lot of details regarding the way it managed to compile the software, as well as a lot of technical data on other similar solutions.
Besides these pieces of information, there are also a lot of photos available on the multitouch functionality of the T-Mobile G1, as well as a video. Luke Hutchinson even offered the code for its application, nevertheless he stated that it still required some work to be done and mentioned that the code was available so that other developers could benefit from it as well. End-users should be aware of the fact that using the application may also imply several risks.