Google adds multitouch to Nexus One browser, maps, and gallery

Wonder what changed to allow them to do this. I can't believe the omission of multitouch from the original release was just down to oversight..

Any idea if this is for all Android (2.x) phones? Is the Moto Droid included?

The browser looks a bit flaky. Watch the end of the video where he double taps and the whole screen goes white, or at the very end when he pinches to zoom, and the view jumps into a side bar. The main column of text on the page seems to be jumping about, sometimes full page width, sometimes half page width.

The maps app seems like it could do with some work too, a couple of times the whole screen goes grey while he zooms in and out.

Just an opinion of a long time android user:

I never really understood the need for multitouch in the browser:

On Android, i just doubletap on a column with interesting content and the browser zooms in, rearranges text to fit into the screen and it's easily readable. Best part: i can do this while using only one hand. It's probably because i am accustomed to that now, but i think most iphone users are just complaining because the don't know it can be just that simple and easy. It's really that good, imho. It's very rare for me to want to zoom deep into a picture, where i would understand the benefit of multitouch. (In that case +/- controls appear on the screen when you touch it, so it's not really inconvenient). Yet, as the iPhone is also using Webkit, does it support that doubletap? That'd be nice :)

BUT, i can see the benefit on google maps, as there are no predefined areas (text columns) to zoom in, so i'm looking forward to this update :)

Besides, if you didn't know, the european version of the Motorola Droid(Milestone here) has multitouch. I guess it was because of some legal uncertanity that it had never multitouch in the U.S.?

Yes, the iPhone supports double-tap to zoom, and it works reasonably well. I rarely have to pinch to zoom in or out in order to get a better view of the content.