Are there any control libraries for Windows Mobile that enable iPhone-style touchscreen behavior?

Question

The way the iPhone uses the touchscreen to enable zooming in and out and scrolling and so forth is very cool, and I was wondering if there is anything available for Windows Mobile that provides a similar user experience.

Answer 1

As far as I know Apple patented those gestures. So there 'shouldn't' be anything legal out there.

See here for example

Answer 2

The zoom in/out is an artifact of the multi-touch hardware. A Pocket PC uses a resistive touch panel, which provides only a single contact point (touching 2 places gives the average of the two, not two points), so WinMo hardware simply won't support it. I've seen a hack that emulated the behavior, but it was just that - a hack, and it was more frustrating than useful.

The other large problem is that CE, and therefore WinMo, doesn't have the concept of the mouse being in 2 places at once, which makes something like multitouch require an upper-layer translator to handle the hardware and send out messages to apps listening for these double points. It's certainly possible, but it would be OEM dependent in any WinMo device out today.

Scrolling and gestures aren't new, so there's definitely been work there by several tird parties. I don't have any links offhand, but I've certainly seen apps that used a similar look and feel. Typically it will be implemented in a List, ListView or Grid type control that hooks mouse messages and translates them into gestures for the underlying control.

Answer 3

Windows Mobile, up until v.6.1, has been created to be used with a stylet. All UI designed to resemble the iphone is just a software layer put on top of WM (a basic app that runs over windows), and the results are usually slow and buggy, though some have made a real effort to hide Microsoft's non-talented UI designer's work. (HTC has made a nice looking attempt with its Diamond, it's probably the best UI I've seen on Windows Mobile). As of today, there is no dll that enables you to handle the touchscreen the way that Apple does it with its SDK. You will find tricks to emulate multi-touch, but it won't get you far.

Finger navigation will be the biggest feature in Windows Mobile 7 (a big part of the OS core is beeing changed) and hopefully Microsoft's SDK will enable us to use the touchscreen features the same way that Apple does.

Remember that Windows Mobile has to run on different types of hardware, (Nokia, HTC, ...) and it's often hard to have an optimized generic OS.

Answer 4

It's not a control library but PointUI is a project trying to bring a more iPhone like interface to Windows Mobile devices.

Answer 5

Hi, Have a look at Resco Mobile Forms Toolkit at http://www.resco.net/developer/mobileformstoolkit/overview.aspx

You can find there controls to work with pictures in a very attractive way, and touch-scroll enabled controls.

Answer 6

CTacke hit the nail on the head with his answer. Multitouch requires hardware support. There's a company named Stantum that has implemented multitouch on resistive screens. They have Windows Mobile drivers available and a consistent API across operating systems for the screen technology. However to make use of the technology a phone maker would have had to purchase the screen technology and drivers from the company. You can see a video of the technology here: http://www.stantum.com/spip.php?page=video

To date I know of no Windows Mobile phones that implement the technology.

Answer 7

Hello, I would definitely suggest the toolkit from Resco. Guys from Resco added the Touch functionality to almost all controls. Moreover, the version I've just downloaded has 3 brand new components for data input. All of them fully support Touch functionality and have very attractive graphics — similar to the iPhone.

Answer 8

Hi, Bee Mobile also offers some interesting iPhone-like controls for Windows Mobile. Check them out at http://beemobile4.net