Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 to get Multi-Touch Capabilities in Q1 2011

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 is one of SE’s headliners for the Android platform but it is also one of SE’s most controversial smartphone. After a long time struggle, the Xperia X10 has recently received its much expected Éclair update, and now we’ve learned that Sony Ericsson is already preparing another OTA update for the device which is supposed to begin rolling out in the first quarter of 2011. The upcoming firmware upgrade is going to enable some new features on the X10, features that you might expect from such a high-end device. I’m talking about multi-touch, not any kind of multi-touch but merely some limited forms of multi-touch.

Rikard Skoberg from the SE Product Blog informed of this upcoming OTA firmware update, saying that it will bring some dual-touch functionality on a limited number of applications. The good thing is that the web browser and Google Maps will definitely benefit from the update. Skoberg also noted that the multi-touch solution that Sony Ericsson engineers came up with is far from perfect and it does come with its flaws. One of these flaws involves strange behavior when crossing axes with the two fingers. This is the main reason why SE limited the multi-touch capabilities to certain apps. The bright side is that it should also work in some third-party applications such as the ones that use pinch-to-zoom for instance. If you’re still a bit skeptical about this, check out the video below showing multi-touch capabilities on an Xperia X10 used also in the Angry Birds game application. I just hope we won’t encounter the same problems with the upcoming member of the Xperia family, the Sony Ericsson X12 aka Anzu.

[Via: XperiaX10Blog]