Motorola Adding Multi-Touch To All Phones, You Can Blame Apple For Lack of Nexus One Multi-Touch

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LAPTOP magazine sat down with Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha and got candid with him about the future of Motorola products, and the popularity of Google’s Nexus One, and the impending Apple Tablet. Jha, who attended the Nexus One press event at the Googleplex earlier this month, told the interviewer that despite the Nexus One, he (and consumers, he believes) are happy with the Motorola Droid.

When Jha was asked about multi-touch, he said that there were a “number of factors” regarding multi-touch and “not all of them were technical”, but a majority of Motorola’s devices, in the US or not, would include multi-touch functionality.

You’ll remember, of course, that Nexus One devices sold in the United States only have limited multi-touch functionality (it’s not completely single touch – despite popular perception, for example, the virtual on-screen keyboard discreetly uses multi-touch technology). TFTS comrade Chris talks about ways to get multi-touch on your Nexus One here.

As for why Google didn’t include the popular feature on the Nexus One – over the weekend, super podcaster Leo Laporte of twit.tv mentioned on his program that a source within Google told him that Google excluded multi-touch on the device out of respect for Apple. Apple holds the patent for multi-touch in the United States, and it’s reportedly a “very weak” one, that wouldn’t be defendable in a court of law. Tech blog Gizmodo reported a similar rumor back in early 2009 around the launch of the G1 phone.

This is why the Palm Pre, which has been released in the United States and features multi-touch, hasn’t faced an Apple lawsuit, because (allegedly) Apple knows they can’t defend their weak multi-touch patent. Google is a strategic partner with the iPhone, with Google being the default search provider (at least, for a little while longer), and doesn’t want to offend Apple. Of course, all of this is from ‘sources familiar with the situation’ and nothing has been confirmed by Google.

Back to Motorola, Jha says that the Android smartphone market is about innovation, and that despite the Nexus One, and upcoming Android phones from LG and Dell, Motorola will stay ahead of the curve by innovating with new Droid phones. He says he also believes that Motorola’s Motoblur UI for Android is better than the default Google one

When asked about tablets, Jha hinted that they were investigating the possibility of a 7- or 8-inch Android-Motoblur tablet device. Of course, like the rest of the industry, they’re likely waiting to see what Apple pulls out on Wednesday.