Louie discusses the Motorola Droid 4 and HP hanging onto WebOS
Semi-Touch
Semi-Touch?
That’s what I’m affectionately referring to Google’s Multi-Touch as. Google began rolling our multi-touch support for the Android this week. This update will allow for the “pinch-to-zoom functionality.” So why do I call it semi-touch instead?
The only applications that support it initially will be the browser, maps and gallery applications. So far, there is no news on more applications coming later although there would have to be. So all Android users get ready for your touchscreen phone to have all the features you expect from a touch screen. Wait a minute… not ALL Android users. As of right now, it’s just Nexus One owners that will be getting the functionality. multi-touch is part of the Android 2.0 framework and, as we know, that is exclusive to the Nexus One at the moment.
Droid users and people with other flavors of the Android OS… Google says it will be up to the carriers and device manufacturers to push the updates. There is no talk on when and if it will show up in other models on other carriers or how that decision will be made so keep your eyes and ears open about your brand.
This is the problem with not having a closed ecosystem. You have the device manufacturer (Motorola, HTC, etc), the carrier (T-Mobile, Verizon, etc) and the OS developer (Google) and all three parties have to make arrangements and different partnerships provide different features sets at different times. One Android owner cannot, necessarily, expect the same as another Android owner.
Multi-touch capability has been available for some time and with a serious of hacks (or apps), it’s been unlockable. This new update represents the first time Google is incorporating it into the OS as a native, usable feature.
