Multi-touch appears on G1 Android

The T-Mobile G1 Android phone was missing one key ability that iPhone competitors are expected to have, multi-touch. The hardware is capable of supporting multi-touch features like the famous “zoom pinch” but it was missing from the phone in its released form. Given the recent saber-rattling between Palm and Apple about multi-touch and patents it’s easy to see why it was easier to avoid that whole debate and leave it out.

The primary difference between the Android platform and all the others is how it is based on an open source OS. This means that third-party developers can extend the platform in any way they wish without official support from any company. Today a developer has released a very preliminary form of multi-touch on Android which shows just how powerful an open source platform can be. The video showing multi-touch on the G1 is totally cool when you understand that the developer had to tap right into the OS kernel to get multi-touch enabled. This means it’s not a trivial install but is a great example of the power of open source with Android.

.. from jkOnTheRun