I have a ListView and when I touch an item in the list it flashes orange but the item doesn't gain focus unless I use the trackball.
How can I make the item I selected in the list gain focus?

There's a blog post about this very topic.

Interesting article, thanks for that.
I tried the focusableInTouchMode thing although they recommend against it too and it seems to be broken anyway.
Looks like choice mode is the way to go.