Is the HTC Touch Diamond actually multi-touch? Video
Multi-touch input is all the rage with the latest mobile phones and laptop trackpads, however it doesn’t seem to be a feature in HTC’s latest Touch Diamond and their Touch Pro; however the capability is present, and is exploited in a video by HTC’s debug application.
Like many of HTC’s devices is has hidden features, so not only is the nav-wheel capacitive but the whole front of the device can track finger movement and even two fingers independently.
There isn’t any known feature on the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro which exploits this feature yet, but no doubt once developers get their hands on the API it soon will be.
So, does this then spell out the future and we will see futures mobile phones coming from HTC with full multi-touch capabilities? Quite possible one would presume, but who knows.
Video is below
Source — wmpoweruser via engadget
Comments
7 thoughts on “Is the HTC Touch Diamond actually multi-touch? Video”
DO NOT BUY THE HTC DIAMOND TOUCH!!!
This is by far the most stupid, annoying phone I have seen in my life. Let’s be clear about one thing: the packaging is neat and the mini-usb for power as well as connections is nicely done. And that’s where it stops.
I bought this machine becaue I had read the GPS and camera on the 2nd generation Iphone were really crap. I really like making pictures with my camera (I had a decent SE before) and I want a smartphone so I don’t need to buy a new navigation system. So the Iphone went and I decided to take the HTC Diamond Touch, which looked nice and small. What a fool I was.
Some experiences:
1. I could find no button to access the camera directly. As I said, I love to make pictures, so not having this button is frustrating for me. I don’t want to get out my stylus every time I want to do something. Also, the quality of the pictures is so bad it is hardly worth taking one and the camera has no flashlight.
2. I could find no clear way to swith off the volume for the machine immediately. I might have missed it, but there is no simple way to do this.
3. HTC has used a kind of overlay on top of windows mobile 6.1. This overlay repeats some functions in the windows system, purportedly to make them better accessible, and partly replaces others. This overlay is just unworkable. It makes the machine extremely slow and makes the general handling of windows mobile even more complicated, becauwse the central preferences for the functions it says it handles are not connected to those buttons. However, the smart people at HTC have made it necessary to use this layer of junk by adding buttons that are rather handy: pickup the phone, closing a call etc. Obviously, these buttons do not work without the junk. This has caused me irritation to no end. Moreover, on my machine with Dutch localization, all maps with names like ‘documents’ had been produced in two languages. Obviously, only one map would actually contain the documents, but two were needed to be made for some reason. The same goes for the impossibility to find back pictures, as the machine uses two different folders for ‘pictures’ and ‘images’. Finally, the windows mobile start menu just won’t allow me to add more than seven items to my start menu. Why? What is the purpose of limiting your customer in an obnoxious way from something he wants to do?
4. I tried to sync the machine with my windows xp computer. Initially, the machine was not recognized at all, netier as a diskdrive nor as a smartphone. Upon checking on the internet, I found that for other versions of HTC phones, you need to update your active syc software. So that’s what I did, although it was not inculded on the cd that came with the machine and the manual doesn’t tell you any of this. It worked! Now to the next step: I wanted to use my mac address book on the little thingy, and as outlook does not easily import mac address books, I thought it would be good to make a U-turn via google, updating my google addresses on the run. Downloaded csv file from google, imported it into outlook: all blanks. Not to mention the fact that active sync syncs with outlook only, which is another 3rd party product that I had to buy at great cost and which doesn’t do its job properly. Then, it turns out every time I plug in the phone into my windows machine, active sync starts syncing automatically. It loads automatically, runs automatically and it doesn’t ask you for the specific settings you want to use for syncing.
5. windows mobile does not sync automatically with my mac. So, I had to find out that there is free software from syncmate which does the trick and I can use oggsync to keep my calendar synced. What syncmate doesn’t tell you is that the phone needs a driver too and that in order for the phone to have the drive installed, you need to disable your firewall. By this time, I’m recalling the seemless syncing I experienced between every phone I had without windows mobile and my mac and I start cursing.
6. trying to install route66 map software has given me endless headaches: installation doesn’t go automatically under windows and copying doesn’t work. In both cases, windows for some reasons reports that it cannot copy directly onto the second disc. then, I decide to do something stupid: I go along with the option provided by Route 66 to format my disc (NAND memory). Stupid idea. ‘Can’t access disc’ is the next step. So, the computer nerd in me cries: I can do it myself, I’ll format it! So that’s what I do, using windows xp. Thing formats, but doesn’t stop the process within two hours. I cancel. Disc has disappeared now and cannot be found under windows. Luckily, I have my trusty mac waiting, which does find the disc and does restore it back to a useable windows partition.
7. the route66 software does copy to my windows machine, but not to my mac. On my windows machine, trying to copy the maps gives an error message like: ‘path too long’. Since the copy to my mac failed, I decided to copy the maps from the windows machine onto my mac, then onto the NAND memory. Or just give up and use google maps.
8. After all this, I checked the settings once more. I found out that on my HTC, a little sneaky option had been enabled without any warning. This option means that every time I refuse a call, the phone automatically sends out a text message saying that I am not available right now to the caller. WTF?!?!? Sending text messages without me knowing it or asking for it? I don;t want to send text messages every time I refuse a call, not to mention these things still cost money.
All in all, my experience with HTC, windows mobile and Route 66 until now has been extremely disappointing and as time-consuming as I’m used to with the grossly undertested windows family of products. This is not a machine that you should be selling to people. It is clearly not though through, instead asks for immense levels of technical knowhow on the part of the consumer and even then it is simply not foolproof. I will never, ever in my life buy another HTC product if I can help it. The same goes for windows and Route 66.
Sorry I stand to be corrected, I actually really like the phone after using it for a few days. I was just being impatient
Whomever is posting under my name is not making it better. The phone, after a couple of weeks, is still a bloody nuisance. It is slower than a horse and cart and the handling is about as intuitive as a rock in the face. I also didn’t mention yet it has no expansion slot for external memory. If you want to buy something like this, get yourself an Iphone, or at least something without windows mobile.
Sorry I was mistaken again. I have multiple personalities and I just realized that I posted all the comments on this article.
After looking deep within myself I realized that using a mac was not to my advantage. I should have bought an IPhone because the color motif matches with all my other peripherals.
Also I don’t have fingers so I’m not sure why I bought a touch screen device.
Listen I don’t appreciate you trying to impersonate me.
I have tried to deliberately misinform people and you shouldn’t judge me because of that!
Obviously I’m not that intuitive myself, possibly less intuitive than a rock (or even a small piece of wood) to the face. My personalities are acting up again… maybe if I rub myself with responsive Iphones I can cure it?
Sorry guys I have to go, my mom’s calling.
Give me your name and address and I’ll gladly show you what I think of your infantile pranks, abusing a silly possibility to use someone else’s nick.
Just point out where your alleged ‘misinformation’ was given and we could talk. The way you play it now, I’ll just squeeze your tiny balls and stuff them down your throat, you silly moronic fucker.
For clarity’s sake, I’ll repeat what I said: the HTC Diamond Touch is a bad and very slow telephone with the worst operating system ever designed by man.
So funny…