Blogger says G1 multitouch capable

From the very beginning, Android has planned to support multitouch. The G1's touch screen is a ClearPad, created by Synaptics—a founding member of the Open Handset Alliance. Synaptics provides the touch interface driver for Android, and will at some time offer "advanced multi-touch gestures for the Android platform." Over at the RyeBlog, blogger RyeBrye has tapped into the unit's multitouch capabilities.

Synaptics offers a touch module that supports a number of single touch and multitouch gestures that include tapping, pressing, flicking and pinching. This gesture support requires no additional interpretation software on the host end, helping to lower processor demands for the screen's host.

RyeBrye writes that by uncommenting critical lines in the Synaptics driver and recompiling the kernel, he replaced his boot image with a version that supported two finger tracking and debug logging. He posted that the feedback returned by the driver includes position information along with finger width and a finger number. The number allows you to track more than one finger at a time.

He then went ahead and tested a variety of one and two finger gestures. He has pastebinned the debugging output for a half dozen tests, so you can review the data yourself to confirm how the G1 screen tracks two fingers.

As to why the G1 does not officially support multitouch at this time, RyeBrye relates feedback from a Google employee speaking off-the-record. That employee suggests that the G1 specs do not specify anything but a single touch screen, so in the future they might source screens without the built-in multitouch capacity. That makes the multitouch capabilities of the current G1 run a nice extra rather than a necessary component for future production lines. At this time, Synaptics is the sole touch interface company in the Android alliance.

Resource - ArsTechnica