Better get your flame-retardant suit ready when the fanboys see you thank Dell and N-Trig for giving us multi-touch. :)

let's see - multi-touch on touch pad or multi-touch on a screen? :-)

Do you think it will ever be more than a gimmick Rob? I love stuff like this but not sure it really serves much of a purpose on a tablet. I'm trying to think of applications beyond zooming and perhaps some photo manipulation.

Not taking anything away from N-Trig and Dell, and hopefully we will see some fantastic apps taking advantage.

I'm so glad there are beta testers out there like you Rob. Someday multitouch will be a great product and companies like Dell and N-Trig need consumers to test their products for them. I for one don't think I am missing anything by saving over a grand and skipping the multitouch experience. They would need to pay me to beta test, not the other way around. I can say the same for early adopters of the iPhone and TPC's. They improve so much after early adopters do the beta testing.

Rob,

I am a lot more optimistic about the future of this than some of the others here have been -- basically, this gives the promise of porting surface to a tablet.

I think the issue with Mike's approach is whether one has a use for the feature while it still is developing. I bought a TPC years ago, because I had use for the capability, even when it was new. I like the fact that it is better now, but because companies always are improving, there may never be a "non-beta" point for some features.

Gavin,

I am very excited about the zoom feature, and I see it as a lot more than a gimmick. Maybe it's because I'm getting what my optometrist calls "old eyes," but I find myself zooming in on web pages and documents all the time to make them easier to read. Now, instead of digging in the menus a couple of layers, I have a simple gesture to do just that. It's a little jerky, yes, but I'm still really pleased with it.

Thanks for the demo.
They really need to do some work.

I have the iPod Touch to campare with your demo. Why are you using two finger for the scrolling? I normally use either edge on the iPod to move up and down, and have no problem with the zoom. And I can place my finger on any picture while scrolling without having the software show me the picture instead. Just checked on that. Too bad I can't see your video on the iPod.

Good start, but they need to move fast.

does the zoom tool work with google earth or mapquest? that would be cool

I'll give google earth a try and let you know.

Rob, nice job with the demo. Looks like a decent first step for Dell, though obviously nothing worth dropping the bucks on an xt yet. Off-topic, I'm a tad disappointed you kept reaching for that back button. Need to make gestures part of your natural interface skills.

Rob, good vid.

I understand this is seen as the future but I can do the scrolling with pen flicks and my finger on the x60, with pretty much the same experience.

Is the promise of zooming all it is cracked up to be?

alan - yes, it works in google earth

trxman: read this post for the reasons why multi-touch is important. It goes beyond just zooming in on a webpage or picture:

http://www.gottabemobile.com/CommentView,guid,784e9e8c-8f88-43e6-88df-9ed18fc6f82a.aspx

Thanks for the preview Rob. I took the plunge and have a few observations on my first few minutes with multitouch – so far just in Internet Explorer (IE) and Google Earth (GE):

(@ Alan, and maybe trxman) Being able to zoom in Google Earth means that you can zoom out with touch – previously I seemed to need the pen (or touchpad/mouse buttons) to do it, via double right click. Also, it seems that the “fixed 2 finger” movement used for panning in other programs controls landscape tilt here – useful, as single-finger travel activates panning by default in GE anyway.

@ trxman: I find zooming more convenient than choosing a blow-up percentage in IE, but the XT version is not, as Rob mentions, very smooth yet; I’ve got to go compare it to my brother’s IpodTouch. Another convenience in IE is that you can now leave the pan/select command in “select” and just use the multitouch for panning. Also, multitouch scrolling/panning seems to allow faster movement than that provided by the panning icon/command in IE, but that might have something to do with the settings on my machine(?)

Having said all this, though, I’m certainly experiencing the unintended actions/activations that Rob mentioned for IE; time will tell whether these can be got around with experience, for the current driver. Also, I have always found the touch (and pen) responses to be unreliable – e.g. touch will stop working until I use the pen or vice verse (in dual mode), and this has not changed on my machine with the new driver.

(Finally another minor glitch I found so far: The default “screen off” option for the double finger double tap is slightly quicker than holding down the screen/rotate button, but the problem is that when I reactivate the screen via the above button, it is rotated (=> 3 more button pushes needed), and if I reactivate it via the QuickSet button, the Dell Tablet Settings window comes up whether I want it or not. Anyone know another way to turn the screen back on?)

Note to Dell/N-Trig: The people want their “rotate”!

I'm the author of MultiTouchVista (http://www.codeplex.com/multitouchvista). Just look what it can: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqvFTbQASeA (more videos at http://www.youtube.com/nesherhh). N-Trig makes good digitizers, but software is really bad. I have contacted them, but they was not interested....

I downloaded and installed the drivers this morning and this is great. I'm looking forward to a public release of the SDK from Microsoft around the end of August so we can get some applications to take advantage of the multi-touch. Some multi-touch apps using virtual earth would be pretty cool.
My review: http://nicholasrayner.com/blog/technology/dell-latitude-get-rsquo-s-the-multi-touch-goodness/