Report: Apple nixed Android in multitouch
One of the main complaints about the company’s Google Android is the lack of multitouch support.
Now, according to VentureBeat report MG Siegler, we can have an idea of why Google missed this feature on their mobile operating systems:
Apple, which, of course, makes a signature touch on a few mobile devices, iPhone, apparently, has asked Google not to implement it, and Google have agreed, Android team member tells us.
In addition, Android team member said they were relieved that Google does not go against the wishes of Apple, given the legal storm that seems to be brewing between Apple and Palm, which uses multiple technologies in its new pre-phone. Even if Apple eventually decides not to pursue a lawsuit against the Palm (it is not yet clear how likely that is to say, but Apple has an impressive array of patents), the situation is likely to bitter relations between the two companies. Google, it seems, does not want to participate in the destruction of its relationship with Apple.
While all this may seem somewhat frivolous, it is worth noting that last month, Apple was awarded a patent entitled “Touch-screen device, method and graphical user interface for defining commands, using heuristics. Patent number 7479949, originally filed in September 2007, covers all its multitouch gestures (swipe, pinch, rotation, etc.) that are used in Apple iPhone.
Day after that the patent was awarded, COO Apple iPhone Tim Cook has warned rivals they need to understand that Apple “will not stand for our (intellectual property) broke out, and we will use any weapons that we have at our disposal.” Those comments, made at the Apple in the first fiscal quarter earnings call, is believed to be available for Palm though Cook did not single out any particular company in making his comments.
Siegler went to the Palm address connection:
Although the connection between Apple and Palm, it seems like it should be strong, given how many former Apple employees now work at Palm, Google and Apple is actually better. Not only Google, specially adapted tons of its products for iPhone (with applications like maps, and Google Search, as well as a specially formatted web page), but its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, on the Apple board of directors. And do not underestimate the fact that the proportion of chief rival Microsoft.
Despite the fact that open-source Android can be modified to support multitouch with a few well-placed lines of code, you need to ask why this feature is not supported and, initially, when Google officially do so.
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Tags: Android, Apple, G1, Google, mulitouch, search
