Help Touchscreen unclarities (and Eclair doubt)

[screaminbug]

DroidHead
RT @sprint: Clarification on Android updates for the Hero & Samsung Moment. Will be updating straight to Android 2.1, not 2.0, in 1H2010.

samsung moment is getting 2.1 first half

I could have replied in firmware thread, but I thought it would be too much offtopic there, so...

OK. Let's forget about that RIL stuff for the moment. Major changes that concerns hardware from 1.5 (or 1.6) to 2.0+ are bluetooth (file transfer profile) and touchscreen (multi-touch). I don't think Bluetooth should be a problem hardware-wise. What might be of concern is the touchscreen. (?)

So, is Moment using Melfas touchscreen?

I've been looking at a source code for Melfas devices in general. It surprised me that even the one that is supported out of the box in linux kernel 2.6.32 (MCS-5000) still doesn't have multi-touch implemented, although hardware should be multi-touch capable.

Excerpt from linux-2.6.32/drivers/input/touchscreen/mcs5000_ts.c

switch (buffer[READ_INPUT_INFO]) {
	case INPUT_TYPE_NONTOUCH:
		input_report_key(data->input_dev, BTN_TOUCH, 0);
		input_sync(data->input_dev);
		break;

	case INPUT_TYPE_SINGLE:
		x = (buffer[READ_X_POS_UPPER] << 8) | buffer[READ_X_POS_LOWER];
		y = (buffer[READ_Y_POS_UPPER] << 8) | buffer[READ_Y_POS_LOWER];

		input_report_key(data->input_dev, BTN_TOUCH, 1);
		input_report_abs(data->input_dev, ABS_X, x);
		input_report_abs(data->input_dev, ABS_Y, y);
		input_sync(data->input_dev);
		break;

	[B]case INPUT_TYPE_DUAL:
		/* TODO */
		break;

	case INPUT_TYPE_PALM:
		/* TODO */
		break;

	case INPUT_TYPE_PROXIMITY:
		/* TODO */[/B]
		break;

On the other hand, Melfas is Samsung's partner. Majority of Samsung phones that have touchscreen (maybe all?) use Melfas devices. I can understand why multi-touch support isn't supported on Linux (for example poor or/and unavailable documentation), but I cannot see why Samsung could have problem with that, being said that they are Melfases partner, but one never knows what's going on there.

For comparison, Synaptics drivers do have a good multi-touch support in linux. I believe Hero and G1 are both using Synaptics touchscreen. (?)

 

[Andronix]

hardware is capable

Samsung Galaxy recognize more as one finger | receptorBlog

we need Samsung to do something about it...

 

[screaminbug]

I'm just trying to explain to myself why Samsung is so reluctant to give us at least some information about upgrade to 2.0. I do not believe that it's simply their lack of care for their customers. That wouldn't be very wise policy, and they should be pretty much aware of it.

This could be a naive thinking, but maybe they can't confirm nor refute that Galaxy will get 2.0, not because they just don't care, but simply because of some technical parameters that are yet unknown. Hence my speculation about touchscreen. Maybe they don't know if they can do it (poor communication and/or support from melfas, or whatever).

If something along those lines (touchscreen is just an example) is true, of course they won't admit it. On the other hand, making definitive promises about something that's not solid is something big corporations are very careful about.

I'm not really defending Samsung. Just trying to rationalize their current behaviour.

 

[mrqs]

it's also possible that they have no intention of upgrading the galaxy beyond cupcake and the reason why they aren't saying so is that it would hurt the sales of the galaxy badly

 

[Pieter]

What is certain, from the behold source:

- the kernel source tree for the behold also supports the galaxy
- the firmware of the touchscreen can be updated

This suggests that it is possible to update the device with multitouch support and that samsung continues support for galaxy. But we cannot know for sure.