Hey guys, I have a question that I can't seem to find the answer to. How many touches can the iPad handle at one time? The iPhone can handle 5 I think. But with the bigger screen I would think the iPad would do more so you can do more 2 handed gestures. (Think playing a keyboard or mixing sound levels with both hands) So how many is it? Has anyone found the info in the SDK or anywhere else? I'm sure the multitouch interface is better but how many touches can it really handle at once?
well, in theory, as many as the amount of track points on the screen (saying your touch is the size of one square in the grid). But I really don't know how many touches the interface is programmed to take..
Yeah that's the million dollar question for me. I know it can take a touch anywhere on the screen. But If I put all 10 fingers on screen at once will it be able to handle it? I want to develop a game that would require at least 10 fingers on screen at once. (2 different people) But I don't want to develop anything till I know it can handle it.
The most I've run across in a game is 3, and that was in quantum collapse. I would however imagine it could take as many as you want seeing as it is a new method introduced in the iphone, but again I have no clue that's only a guess.
10 fingers would sure take up a lot of real estate on the screen. My thought would be that it is probably possible. For example, lets say I am making a guitar hero type of game that is 2 player (one person on each side of the device) there is a dividing line between bolf halves of the screen. Each players functions and HUD/gameplay screen visuals are on their own sides. each can use a hand (5 fingers for fretting) and a button along the side of the screen to strum the notes when they hit the "sweet spot." I don't see why this couldn't work, but I'm sure someone will try to see if it is possible. Just thinking aloud.
I have a tank game demo that lets you play a vs. tank battle on a single ipod - there are virtual controls on both sides of the screen. I wrote it as kind of a joke (it's never been released), but it's something that would actually work well on an ipad. There appears to be a technical limitation where at most 5 simultaneous touches work. So either do your homework and review the documentation and/or try it on a device before investing a lot of work into designing a 10-finger game only to find out after the fact that it doesn't work on real hardware.
Apple still didn't decide about the new upper limit, that's why there is no info about that yet. There is a (confidental) discussion about this over at the dev forums: https://devforums.apple.com/message/161782#161782
You might find it worthwhile listening to the latest toucharcade podcast about the iPad, because this is discussed among the developers. Also, I believe the limit is actually 6 on the iPhone.
I hope the limit is increased to 10 for ipad. Current limit for ipod/iphone is definitely 5. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1202484/how-to-force-iphone-ipod-touch-to-handle-more-than-5-touches-at-the-same-time Not only is a 6th touch not registered, but it can interfere with already tracking touch events.
Yes, the iphone/ipod touch is limited to 5 it's very rare to have a game or a app with 5 fingers at the same time on the iphone. ( maximum use is 3 or 4 ) The alternative awnser is that in any case, for the iPad, we can make really good stuff with 5 fingers max... But as a developer, more like 10 should be much better.
I believe it's a limit with the size of the screen, not a technical limit. They don't allow more than five fingers, but the limit is six; 3 fingers on each vertical side. Note: I don't know this for sure, I'm just repeating what a pretty successful App store dev seemed very certain about.
Hmm, I think it's more than 5. Quantum Collapse uses 8 or so at one time if I'm not wrong, but I may be.
I haven't toyed around with the latest iPad SDK but I tested this limit before when I downloaded the SDK last year and I discovered that you can only track up to 5 touches at a time. Furthermore, if you place a 6th finger on the screen, it stops ALL the touch events from registering and you have to lift all your fingers and start all over. I'm not sure if I'll ever need to track so many simultaneous touches in one of my own apps but I'll bet that the Smule Ocarina dev would be extremely interested in being able to track 10 touches at a time on an iPad
