Even before the release of the nexus phone, a lot of tirade has been spurred towards the google community and to other techblogs as well, by users who are complaining “why does the ‘superphone’ doesn’t have any multi-touch capability?”
It seems even Mr. Andy Rubin’s statement of preferences won’t pacify the people. I can’t blame them, especially those old iPhone users, who just migrated to N1 phone. I agree, that the ‘pinch-to-zoom’ feature is very natural to use instead of double-tapping the screen to zoom it, or pressing that ‘magnifying glass’.
Okay, enough of the nostalgia! It appears that G finally heed the wishes of many N1 users, with that, the developers had just released the official OTA update for the Nexus One; One of the clamored goodies in that package is the ‘multi-touch capablity’. Hoohah for that!
At least on this one, you can be sure that voiding the warranty of your phone, or the risk of cooking the ROM will be far from reality. Unlike the hack being protrude by our brave xda-dev geeks, that offers no guarantees on their end.
Added to that, the OTA update doesn’t only contain multi-touch capability, check this excerpt.
Google Goggles: this mobile application will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web Google Maps: the Maps application with be updated to a new version, Google Maps 3.4, which will include:
- Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer
- Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before
- Night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving
3G connectivity: we will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones In order to access the update, you will receive a message on your phone’s notification bar. Just download the update, wait for it to install, and you should be all set. This update will be rolled out gradually to phones – and most users might not receive the notification until the end of the week. We hope you enjoy these new features and look forward to your feedback.
**This sweet update is easily done over the air, just wait for a notification update from Google, download it and presto! We’re in.
Here it is, on live-action:
Oh well, in some instances, you might not get the notification from G instantly. Don’t fret, there’s a geeky solution for that, just follow the steps here.
If you have some minutes to burn, here’s the reason why did Google decide to put the multi-touch capability on a stall. Why the wait? Here’s their excerpt (via readwriteweb)
Looking around the mobile industry, from Apple to Palm to HTC and Motorola – it’s clear that pinch-to-zoom technology has become a standard and popular way for users to interact with their mobile phones. Likewise, Android users can now truly benefit from this capability with the availability of Android 2.1, which powers a new class of devices with larger touchscreens and more interactive features. Unlike past devices, these phones have the processing power to deliver pinch-to-zoom, while still providing a great user experience. Based on these new capabilities and numerous requests from Android users, we decided to provide pinch-to-zoom capabilities with this new over-the-air software update for Nexus One devices.
Sounds like BS to you? To think that the Android 2.0 has already the capability to cater this functionality. Why still wait for the 2.1? Anyway this just concludes that the rumors of “Google being scared of an impending Apple lawsuit by infringing their multitouch feature” is just a fantasy.
I guess we need to re-update our nexus one sucks post now :D
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Tags: google phone hack, google phone multitouch, google phone ota, how to add multitouch on nexus one, how to get multitouch nexus one, nexus one hack, nexus one hacked, nexus one ota, nexus one updates
It’s amazing really that Google didn’t just put this on from day 1. Still, better late than never, eh?