Android and T-Mobile G1’s Five Worst Flaws

The lack of multi-touch is a hardware deficiency in the G1, not an Android deficiency. But it highlights the problems developers will have if they want to create iPhone-quality experiences. If you require multi-touch in your app then your app won’t work on some Android phones. If you don’t require multi-touch, then you’re stuck writing extra code and designing alternative interface gestures.

If Android developers tend to take the easy way out and just target the lowest common denominator of device capabilities, then the platform will never rival the iPhone — and it will only fall further behind each successive year.

★ Wednesday, 24 September 2008