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Moto Droid - No Multitouch or Flash lite

blozout

Well-Known Member
Sep 12, 2009
127
48
So, how do we feel about the Moto Droid w/ Android 2.0 NOT having multitouch support or Flash lite capabilities?! Personally, I have the Sprint HTC Hero and have been a little jealous about what the Droid has to offer. But really, other then the physical keyboard, Google maps navigation and the "New" Android Market layout (both google nav and market will be fixed with the forthcoming 2.0 update), I'm not feeling so bad anymore...

Check out the video review:
Motorola Droid (Verizon Wireless) Cell Phone reviews - CNET Reviews
 
So, how do we feel about the Moto Droid w/ Android 2.0 NOT having multitouch support


You must have missed it ...

Speaking of which, the Android virtual keyboard is largely the same, but Google says it revamped the keyboard layout for faster, more-accurate typing. We haven't noticed specific design changes just yet, but we'll explore a bit more. Also, as Google puts it, "the multitouch support ensures that key presses aren't missed while typing rapidly with two fingers."
 
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You must have missed it ...

Good point...during typing you may be able to press more than one key at a time. But if you watched the video, unless CNET missed it(which is possible with them), features such as the web browser and google maps(same as Hero) do not support multi touch.
I didn't miss that, and thats kind of a big deal. I'm just surprised.
 
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Android 2.0 now supports multi touch and the only app that is taking advantage of this currently is the virtual keyboard.

The other apps will catch up.

-Bill

That's the info I'm looking for. Odd that's not a fully supported feature out of the box for Droid, let's see how quickly Motorola / Google push those updates out. I wonder if HTC incorporated the multi touch into the Sprint Hero Sense UI or if that was Google further tweaking v1.5? It is a little jerky and unpolished using the Hero browser...
 
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So, how do we feel about the Moto Droid w/ Android 2.0 NOT having multitouch support or Flash lite capabilities?! Personally, I have the Sprint HTC Hero and have been a little jealous about what the Droid has to offer. But really, other then the physical keyboard, Google maps navigation and the "New" Android Market layout (both google nav and market will be fixed with the forthcoming 2.0 update), I'm not feeling so bad anymore...


*sigh*

Flash is the product of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Not Android, not Verizon, not Google, but Adobe Systems Incorporated. It's not part of any OS, it's a plugin. If you have a question about when Flash will be available for Android, iPhone, WinMo, Palm, or any other system, the credit/blame goes to Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Now, because I had the 2 seconds necessary to put "Flash for Mobile" into Google and press "Google Search" I found this article.

Adobe preparing full-featured Flash for mobile phones | csmonitor.com

With this quote (bold is mine):
"According to Adobe, a public developer beta of Flash 10.1 will be made available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and a handful of desktop operating systems by the end of the year. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS won
 
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Flash 10 is listed in the spec sheet for the phone on the Motorola website and it's listed as "coming in 2010". So it will be there.. but it's not Google's or Motorola's fault really that it isn't yet.

As was mentioned above... multitouch is built into Android 2.0. It is there for any future application to use and take advantage of. There is a video out there of an early version of the Droid (GSM version) where the guy is clearly zooming in and out by "pinching" just like on the iphone. So it's definitely possible... it seems to have been taken out for political or legal reasons. It is completely possible it will be added later to Google Maps and the browser. I am not really convinced that pinching is any more efficient than panning, zooming and navigating with the default Android interface... it works fine for me and I can do it with one hand (with an iphone you need one hand to hold the phone and two fingers to "pinch".
 
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*sigh*

Flash is the product of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Not Android, not Verizon, not Google, but Adobe Systems Incorporated. It's not part of any OS, it's a plugin. If you have a question about when Flash will be available for Android, iPhone, WinMo, Palm, or any other system, the credit/blame goes to Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Now, because I had the 2 seconds necessary to put "Flash for Mobile" into Google and press "Google Search" I found this article.

Adobe preparing full-featured Flash for mobile phones | csmonitor.com

With this quote (bold is mine):
"According to Adobe, a public developer beta of Flash 10.1 will be made available for Windows Mobile, Palm webOS and a handful of desktop operating systems by the end of the year. Public betas for Google Android and Symbian OS won
 
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Honestly... on both topics I'm just speculating based on things I've read. I can't give you definite reasons why these choices were made. I know for a fact that it is possible both in Android 2.0 and the Droid (from a technical persepective) to register more than one finger touching the screen at the same time and to do things such as zoom in and out by 'pinching'. Why Google, Motorola and Verizon chose to leave it out of this device?! I have no idea. I can only guess it has something to do with the fact that Apple thinks they own the rights to that gesture... and maybe they want to make sure this launch goes smoothly and doesn't run into legal issues with Apple? Or something along those lines? I have no idea.

Same thing with Flash... I have no idea why it isn't there at launch. I just know it's coming and that it apparently needs more work to be ready for primetime on the Droid. I think if they could have had it in there on release day.. they would have.
 
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Honestly... on both topics I'm just speculating based on things I've read. I can't give you definite reasons why these choices were made. I know for a fact that it is possible both in Android 2.0 and the Droid (from a technical persepective) to register more than one finger touching the screen at the same time and to do things such as zoom in and out by 'pinching'. Why Google, Motorola and Verizon chose to leave it out of this device?! I have no idea. I can only guess it has something to do with the fact that Apple thinks they own the rights to that gesture... and maybe they want to make sure this launch goes smoothly and doesn't run into legal issues with Apple? Or something along those lines? I have no idea.

Same thing with Flash... I have no idea why it isn't there at launch. I just know it's coming and that it apparently needs more work to be ready for primetime on the Droid. I think if they could have had it in there on release day.. they would have.

I hear you. I'm relatively new to Android and not proficient in programing or developing, but I am very curious about how a lot of it works. I just find it interesting the complexities involved with launching and maintaining a new OS. All in all I love Android and I'm very satisfied with my Hero, outside of some processor related lag issues, the ramped up version of 1.5 appears to be very comparable to the Droid running 2.0. Google navigation looks to be awesome and I'm excited about the 2.0 update for that alone. Thanks for all the insight!

...and damnit Sprint, start advertising the Hero. How can they expect to compete with Verizon and the Droid ad campaign? It really is a shame. HTC has to run it's own commercials promoting(kind of) the Hero.
 
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Let me through another odd kink in this discussion. I spent 4 hours with both the Droid and the Eris. I didn't necessarily test the multi-touch on the Droid but I did note that there was no "pinch" capability for zooming. However, there was an intuitive zoom option on the browser that popped up just when I wanted to zoom in or out.

The Eris is supposed to be running 1.5 w/ Sense. I thought 1.5 did not support multi-touch? Because I was 100% able to use the "pinch" zoom feature on the Eris. Could this be support added by HTC w/Sense UI?

And why not have the ability on the Droid? Puzzling....
 
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Let me through another odd kink in this discussion. I spent 4 hours with both the Droid and the Eris. I didn't necessarily test the multi-touch on the Droid but I did note that there was no "pinch" capability for zooming. However, there was an intuitive zoom option on the browser that popped up just when I wanted to zoom in or out.

The Eris is supposed to be running 1.5 w/ Sense. I thought 1.5 did not support multi-touch? Because I was 100% able to use the "pinch" zoom feature on the Eris. Could this be support added by HTC w/Sense UI?

And why not have the ability on the Droid? Puzzling....

My feelings exactly. It does seem this is something HTC is doing, and being that the multi touch "pinch zoom" is slightly erratic I actually hope it is because once Google finally incorporates it into Android it should be smoother.
 
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The Droid will be my first Android/Smartphone and everything I have been worried about has been answered.

That multi-touch stuff is great to hear, I have been planning to port one of my games over to Android and multi-touch is a must.

Also, I hear that 256MB app limit can be worked around by routing to the MicroSD card. That'll probably be important once i start working on my app as well.

Thanks for the info guys.
 
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