The linux touch system is currently based off event streams, and proc/bus/devices. The active user must be given permissions to read /dev/input/TOUCHDEVICE, where TOUCHDEVICE is the event stream for your device. Currently only Wacom tablets are supported. If you have an unsupported tablet contact me at jim.tla+sdl_touch@gmail.com and I will help you get support for it.
Mac:
The Mac and iPhone APIs are pretty. If your touch device supports them then you'll be fine. If it doesn't, then there isn't much we can do.
iPhone:
Works out of box.
Windows:
Unfortunately there is no windows support as of yet. Support for Windows 7 is planned, but we currently have no way to test. If you have a Windows 7 WM_TOUCH supported device, and are willing to help test please contact me at jim.tla+sdl_touch@gmail.com
The number of touch devices can be queried with SDL_GetNumTouchDevices().
A SDL_TouchID may be used to get pointers to SDL_Finger.
SDL_GetNumTouchFingers(touchID) may be used to get the number of fingers currently down on the device.
The most common reason to access SDL_Finger is to query the fingers outside the event. In most cases accessing the fingers is using the event. This would be accomplished by code like the following:
A SDL_Finger is guaranteed to be persistent for the duration of a touch, but it will be de-allocated as soon as the finger is removed. This occurs when the SDL_EVENT_FINGER_UP event is _added_ to the event queue, and thus _before_ the SDL_EVENT_FINGER_UP event is polled.