No Multitouch for Android

Great read over at Crave about Android and java. From the article:

"[Android] supports touch-screen technology, but Horowitz declined to comment on support for multitouch, a notable iPhone ability that opens up user-interface possibilities, beyond saying multitouch support isn't in the first version of the Android SDK."

There will be no multi-touch pinching in Android, or at least, it's not built into the SDK. But it could be added later. Is multitouch really that important? Multitouch on the iPhone is used mostly for growing and shrinking the browser view, pictures, and maps. I rarely use the pinch or grow multitouch features on anything but Google maps. The biggest benefit of touchscreen technology is quick menu selection, and that only requires a single touch. The omission of multitouch from Android is probably to keep the hardware cheaper, and I wouldn't consider it a big deal. Multitouch seems like it'd be much more useful on a larger screen, for instance, on a MacBook Touch tablet.

New Apple Patent Could Bring iPhone Features to Macs

Imagine making the iPhone's flick gesture on a touch-screen multi-touch mouse, and suddenly on Safari, tabs flip across your iMac's screen like photos or cover flow on the iPhone. That could be just one possible use of a new patent Apple is applying for featuring a multi-touch mouse. This patent application is worth a second look. It portends a leap ahead of Vista if they release it with Leopard. Remember the cover flow features being built into Leopard?

Also, at the very least, a mouse like this would also keeps smudges off, say, a touch screen table.