Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"We need a digital camera that can be switched on and fire off that first shot fast. It's not a commonly tracked statistic on any review site, and nobody seems to have this information for every camera. We were hoping other readers could inform us as to what small digital cameras can fire off their first pics in under a second (ideally under half a second). It needs to be small, but mostly, just really quick in operation. Thanks!"
Does not having "pinchy-pinch" really put Google at a competitive disadvantage? I've yet to hear anyone say they won't get the Nexus One simply because they can't "multitouch."
@aubreyq I don't care for it on gallery or browser, but I feel multitouch helps on the keyboard sometimes.
@aubreyq I don't think it's the lack of pinch to zoom that is the issue here. It's the reason why it's implemented on the milestone and not the droid etc. The lack of pinch to zoom is not gonna keep anyone from buying the nexus one but if why put it on your European devices? Given the choice between having it or not having it, I would choose to have it.
@aubreyq Lack of multitouch on the soft keyboard significantly affects typing. I could care less about pinch to zoom/rotate
@aubreyq
A lot of the times no individual feature is a dealbreaker, but when you hand a nexus one to someone with an iPhone and tell them how cool it is, they may say "yeah its cool but i like how i can zoom with two fingers on pictures on mine." They may also like the ability to use iTunes with their iphone, and maybe certain other things about it, and then overall they will want to keep their iphone. Its hard to say when, if ever, it becomes the one thing that makes up someone's mind, but if google wants to pull in iPhone owners, a lot of them will miss the smooth fluid zooming of the iphone. As much as I LOVE android, i certainly miss it from when i had my iPhone. Not everyone will know it's called multitouch, or pinch to zoom, but plenty of people use it and like it, and those people will be annoyed when they try android.
-Taylor
@Kmobs, Edobe, RandomGuy and Taylor Yes Taylor:
You've all made good points. It reminds me when I bought a new vehicle last year. Believe it or not, having an auxiliary audio port was a MUST, as silly as it sounds. Not having it was a deal-breaker. Seriously.
@aubreyq
Yes, I think it does. Besides the fact that pinch-to-zoom is often useful it's also very intuitive. Tap to zoom can be easily overlooked or cause accidental presses. Having multi-touch in the soft keyboard is of course *very* important for dual thumb typists.
@RandomGuy
I noticed this on my Droid in 2.0 but they seemed to add some multitouch for 2.0.1. Although their algorithm still needs work--it won't recognize multitouch for letters very close together, like n-g, maybe because of their mis-hit detection code superseding it.
@Taylor Yes Taylor Yeah, when I meet someone who has an iPhone and they ask what is cool about my Android phone, i tell them to load up Last.fm(or any streaming app) then we both select a nice artist artist to listen to. After about 10 seconds of us both getting into the song that is currently streaming, i bring to attention the fact that I'm now checking my work mail, then checking my gmail, then text messaging a friend about when we're meeting later, then i surf a web page, then i start downloading an app I just read about on the web page, then I go back to surfing all while listening to my last.fm song. Then i tell them to do what i just did. This is such a PR type move, point to the competition missing a productive, yet ultimately low priority feature, and say an entire platform is at a competitive disadvantage for not having it. Really Nilay you consider pinch and zoom a larger competitive advantage than multi-tasking?
@RandomGuy l used to have difficulties with the lack of multi-touch on the softkeyboard (on the rare occasion I used it in portrait mode). Now have swype and use that or the slide-out. Won't go back to regular soft keypad.
When I let friends or family play with my phone, the first thing they do is go to Safari or Maps and use their fingers to zoom in and out, mostly just for the sake of doing it because it's fun. Along with that, there is usually is some type of comment along the lines of "this is cool."
Like it or not, it seems to be a gesture that has reached near iconic status nowadays. Even people that have never even used an iPhone before will try to do it, as they've probably seen it on commercials.
Google would be wise to implement it as soon as possible, if only just to keep that initial first impression of the phone as positive as possible for people trying it out. You don't want people picking up the phone and thinking "oh, it doesn't do that cool iPhone thing." We all know people will think and say that. To think otherwise is denial.
That said, the lack of keyboard "chording" is a far bigger deal breaker than pinch-zooming when it comes to using the phone. It's easy to get by with double taps and zoom buttons, but having the keyboard miss every time thumb presses overlap would be maddening. I'm sure it won't be this way for long though.
@avinash240 Agreed, multitasking is one of the very reason why I didn't get an Iphone and upgraded to a Nexus One. Even my old Amiga 500 from the 80's can multitask. I NEED my phone to do the same. Multitouch isn't that important to me, multitasking is far more important.
@aubreyq
When android was released, I got the impression that google created this OS with the hope that people would be able to add, edit, change whatever they could. That was the point of an open OS.
Why couldn't someone (smart) code in multitouch support for the keyboard for instance?
Is that source code not available? is it not editable without potentially bricking the phone? what's holding back the consumer from creating these features.
@aubreyq
The way the article calls it a "huge" disadvantage seems a bit much.
A [omit sensational adjective] disadvantage? Possibly, though a glance at these comments would make it seem less significant than a guaranteed deal-breaker.
@awillinger They HAVE allowed exactly what you're talking about. Which is partially why the comments from owners of Android phones (like myself) go insane every time Engadget says there is no multitouch. I use a browser that supports pinch to zoom (Dolphin) that I got for free from the market. There are MULTIPLE FREE keyboard options out there also available from the market, and some of them do some really cool things. There are multitouch photo albums. So yes, multitouch works in Android 2.0+. And YES many 3rd party devs use it in their apps.
I do agree that it's shady that google doesn't support pinch to zoom in their apps, but to say that the OS doesn't support it is a complete fallacy.
@aubreyq yes perhaps..