Nilay Patel on the Droid’s Software Keyboard

The iPhone’s use of multi-touch for its software keyboard is a key factor in its success. That the Droid doesn’t use it for its keyboard is a perfect example of how important it is for Google to add multi-touch to the standard Android system UI. It’s nice that the APIs are there for third-party developers to support multi-touch gestures in their apps, but the keyboard is a standard component used by every app on the system.

Update: Now I’m hearing that the Droid’s keyboard does support multi-touch in some fashion, but just not in the “press another key while still holding down the previous one” fashion that Patel demos.

★ Friday, 6 November 2009