Determining the maximum number of simultaneous touches possible on an iOS device?

Question

Is there a way to find out the maximum number of simultaneous touches on an iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) ? I've read here and there that iPhone can handle 5 while the iPad can handle 11, but I haven't found an official way (through a function call, say) to confirm this.

Answer 1

By testing it! See here for videos and source: http://mattgemmell.com/2010/05/09/ipad-multi-touch

There's no public API to request that information from the hardware.

Answer 2

iPhone can register 5 touch points on its tiny display, don't know about iPad.

Having said that, I wouldn't count on the numbers that you find empirically, because this information is not documented nor there is an api for it.

One good reason I can think of is the reduced touch sensor accuracy as the number of touch points increase.