Is a Google Picking a Fight with Apple: the Release of Multi-touch on Nexus One

Google’s NexusOne announced a new software update that will be released to its customers over-the-air. Among the various new features, the added pinch to zoom functionality to the phone’s browser, gallery and map applications, has raised the most eyebrows.

The surprise among customers does not come from the novelty of multi-touch, which Mashable actually noted as one of the missing features in Google’s NexusOne, just one month ago. The customer curiosity emerges from the business end of things: will this new capability raise a heated IP dispute with Apple’s patent on multi-touch?

9to5Mac’s post on the topic recalls a story in Venturebeat, from almost exactly one year ago, in which Apple asked Google not to use multi-touch, and Google apparently conferred. Venturebeat understood Google’s move as signifying how much they valued their positive relationship with Apple.

Here’s Venturebeat’s words from Feb. 9, 2009:

And that makes sense. While the connection between Apple and Palm would seem like it should be strong, given how many former Apple employees now work at Palm, Google and Apple are actually more aligned. Not only does Google specially tailor a ton of its products for the iPhone (both with apps like Maps and Google Search, and specially formatted webpages), but its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, is on Apple’s board of directors. And don’t underestimate the fact that both share a chief rival: Microsoft.

But lots has changed in the past year, including Eric Schmidt resigning from Apple’s board because of a conflict of interest and Apple denying (or delaying according to Apple) Google’s iphone app for Google Voice. Perhaps this change in relationship is evident in Mashable’s more technical explanation for why Google is now going ahead with multi-touch’s capabilities.

In Mashable’s words (from yesterday):

Bloggers have speculated that Google and other folks working on Android phones have been hesitant to implement the pinch-to-zoom multitouch feature in their devices because Apple supposedly holds a patent on it. Nobody’s sure whether or not the patent would actually hold up, or whether Apple would dare take anyone to task for using it. Other phones — including the Palm Pre — have gone ahead and taken the risk, and they haven’t experienced cripplingly adverse legal consequences yet.

How strong are Apple’s multi-touch patents? Is an IP battle about to erupt? I guess that only time will tell…

Related posts:

1. Question of the Month: Did Apple Really Reject Google Voice?
2. Google Voice Enters the iphone – Through the Web Browser
3. Real Time Google Voice Translation in the Works
4. Apple Defines the Order of New Markets: from the iPhone to the iPad
5. How to Advertise on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch: Whistle’s iPhone App

Tagged as: Apple, Google, IP, multi-touch, NexusOne, Palm Pre, Patent