• Registered: 2009-12-20
  • Posts: 9

Topic: Multitouch

If there was ever a device that needed multitouch control, it's the Chumby.  The scrollbars take up too much screenspace on such a small display.

  • Registered: 2009-11-28
  • Posts: 73

Re: Multitouch

I have a feeling that a lot of the interface issues with the Chumby all boil down to one major issue:

$100

Give or take $20, that's the current retail price-point of the Chumby One.  All of those whizbang multitouch thingies like the iPhone, the Droid, the Pre and the Nexus One?  Just the bill of materials, wholesale, comes out to at least $150-200 depending on which analyst you believe.  Add in R&D, manufacturing and shipping costs, and you've got a device that the cell phone carriers have to subsidize to the tune of $200-300 per unit just to get the initial price-point down somewhere sane.

There's no technological reason that the Chumby couldn't have a multitouch-aware capacitive touchscreen that you could do precision taps, wipes and swipes on... but that Chumby would probably cost $400-500.  I'd totally buy one, but I suspect I wouldn't have much company in that.

3 Reply by FalconFour (edited by FalconFour 2009-12-27 02:11:15)

  • Registered: 2009-12-18
  • Posts: 76

Re: Multitouch

If you read the word, "Multitouch", you'd see that the word consists of the parts "Multi" and "touch". Let's examine the term "Multi", shall we? I believe the term "Multi" refers to multiple, that is, more than one, of something. And "touch" is what it refers to. Therefore, the term "Multitouch", refers to the ability of a device to recognize more than one touch at the same time - that is, pinch-zooming or two-finger scroll.

...

WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU NEED MORE THAN ONE TOUCH TO DRAG-SCROLL? That's pretty much the whole basis of the original post and it's based entirely on the common observation that "OMG, my new phone has MuLtItOuCh and I can drag-scroll with it!".

You don't need multitouch to drag-scroll. All you need is software that can interpret this touch-drag as a scrolling action instead of, say, a slipping or missed selection (an error). I would say "code it yourself" but instead, I think you should drop this topic like a bad habit and create a new, more properly worded one, expressing your desire for drag-scroll, not multitouch.

Quite simply, no, the Chumby doesn't need multitouch.

/soapbox

edit: Also, I don't think capacitive sensors are all that expensive. HP has thrown them in for good looks on their DVx000-series laptops, until they realized that everyone friggin' hates turning on their computer by accidentally grazing the QuickPlay button.

  • Registered: 2009-11-28
  • Posts: 73

Re: Multitouch

FalconFour wrote:

If you read the word, "Multitouch",

I think a lot of people (including, I suspect, the person starting this thread) us "multitouch" as a convenient shorthand for "stuff that works like the iphone interface": fast flick-to-scroll, tap-to-activate, pinch-to-zoom, etc etc etc.  It's not technically accurate, but whatever... smile

(Hopefully if I'm putting words into his mouth here he'll correct me.)

edit: Also, I don't think capacitive sensors are all that expensive. HP has thrown them in for good looks on their DVx000-series laptops, until they realized that everyone friggin' hates turning on their computer by accidentally grazing the QuickPlay button.

It's not just the capacitive sensors themselves: it's the whole ball of wax that you need to run an iphone-like interface at anything approaching a reasonable speed: 600mhz and faster ARM processors, large amounts of RAM, high-density fast-refresh displays, etc etc etc.  For example:

http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/iPhon … veals.aspx
http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/Palm- … veals.aspx

(Obviously, I don't work for Chumby, Apple, Palm or any of the players here.  I might be talking complete bollocks.  YMMV.)

  • Registered: 2009-12-20
  • Posts: 9

Re: Multitouch

That's exactly right: it would be great for the touchscreen to work more like my phone. I honestly wasn't thinking about pinch-to-zoom but more about other iphone-style multitouch display functions like flick, tap, drag-to-scroll, etc. 

dr_memory wrote:
FalconFour wrote:

If you read the word, "Multitouch",

I think a lot of people (including, I suspect, the person starting this thread) us "multitouch" as a convenient shorthand for "stuff that works like the iphone interface": fast flick-to-scroll, tap-to-activate, pinch-to-zoom, etc etc etc.  It's not technically accurate, but whatever... smile

(Hopefully if I'm putting words into his mouth here he'll correct me.)

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Multitouch

The bulk of the "magic" of the Apple UI is that they have a dedicated graphics coprocessor that does all the heavy lifting and tons of memory to cache graphics.

The Chumby devices simply don't have all that hardware - and *can't* at this price-point.

If you follow dr_memory's links, that analysis says the cost to *Apple* (in high volume) is nearly double our street price.  I've seen similar independent cost analyses of the chumby, and they've actually been too low (obviously, we don't have the economies of scale that Apple does).  It also doesn't account for other fees - licenses, shipping of materials, G&A, etc.

The UI of the chumby has been designed around the inherent limitations of the device itself, which means that some UI tricks available on substantially more powerful devices aren't done.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-11-28
  • Posts: 73

Re: Multitouch

That said... the cost of ARM/Ion/etc CPU+GPU bundles is only ever going to head in one direction: down.  So I hope you guys are playing around with that stuff in your lab somewhere.  Once the current stock of Classics sells out, there's going to be a $200-shaped hole in your product lineup, and I'd love to see it filled with something seriously whizbang. smile

  • Registered: 2009-12-24
  • Posts: 26

Re: Multitouch

FalconFour wrote:

...
/soapbox

edit: Also, I don't think capacitive sensors are all that expensive. HP has thrown them in for good looks on their DVx000-series laptops, until they realized that everyone friggin' hates turning on their computer by accidentally grazing the QuickPlay button.

No kidding... I hate that... I do it all the time on my laptop.... and no way I have found to disable it...

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,197

Re: Multitouch

We have lots of interesting toys around here smile

Of course by the time we put out something at this price with iPhone-style performance and functionality, people will be wondering why it doesn't have a neural interface and holographic warp-core antigravity, like the new $500 iPhone 9KS has.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2009-11-28
  • Posts: 73

Re: Multitouch

Duane wrote:

We have lots of interesting toys around here smile

Heh, heh, heh.  So: will there be a chumby-brand chumby based on sunfury, or is that only for the OEMs? smile