A source-code hacker has put together a short demo proving the T-Mobile G1 Android phone is indeed capable of multi-touch screen input, paving the way for iPhone-like gesture navigation. The programmer read an announcement from Synaptics, maker of the G1's touchscreen, where the company brags about its touch system's multi-touch capabilities. Intrigued that the same technology may be in the G1, he looked through the touchscreen's software driver source code, finding code in place to support the finger-tracking mode, but that had been "commented out" — turned off by Google. By re-enabling the code and building it in to the driver, he was able to put together a crude hack proof-of-concept, showing simultaneous input with two fingers, with the software recognizing them as two separate touches.

Although this clears the way for developing a driver with fully flushed-out multi-touch recognition, and coding the user interface to recognize gestures, like finger pinches to indicate zooming-in, there are concerns over the usefulness of the hack. Since the G1 is not advertised as supporting multi-touch input, there's nothing stopping Google and HTC from switching to another, cheaper touchscreen manufacturer in the future, one which may not support this hack. The lack of confidence in knowing if future handsets may support multi-touch may give coders pause before investing time and effort in building applications supporting the hack.

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