Multi-touch omitted from Android at Apple's request - report
The absence of multi-touch functionality on T-Mobile's Android-powered G1 smartphone may have been a casualty of Google's cordial relationship with Apple -- one which that search giant would rather not disrupt.
An unnamed source inside the Android team told VentureBeat that Apple requested multi-touch be left out of the device, and Mountain View, Calif.-based Google was happy to comply.
The G1 has been criticized for its touch user interface, which is "inferior to the iPhone's," as Walt Mossberg put it in his review for the Wall Street Journal. "It lacks the iPhone's ability to flick between multiple pictures and Web pages, or to zoom in and zoom out of a photo or Web page by simply using two fingers to 'pinch' or expand the image," Mossberg wrote.
According to the VentureBeat source, the Android team is now "relieved" to have followed Apple's wishes since any legal showdown between Apple and alleged infringers of the iPhone maker's patents won't ensnare Android or the HTC-manufactured G1.
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