One of the major drawbacks of the T-Mobile G1 is the lack of support for multi-touch. Several developers have proven that the hardware is capable of multi-touch support, so why did they leave it out? Could it be the well known patents owned by Apple that many believe will end up in display in a court room once Palm releases it's Pre? According to a report this morning in Venture Beat, a Google Android member goes on record saying that Apple asked Google not to implement multi-touch and Google complied.

Perhaps that is why we are seeing all these great Google goodness such as Google Sync for iPhone, which effectively replaces MobileMe for some folks. Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt is on Apple's Board of Directors which certainly makes it easier for the lines of communications between the two companies. A plethora of Android phones due to be released at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. With the iPhone and Palm Pre supporting multi-touch, the space is getting more competitive and it should be interesting to see if Google decides it's time to pinch and zoom. If they were to license multi-touch from Apple, that would ratchet up talks of an anticipated legal battle between Palm and Apple. We'll have complete coverage of MWC at our sister site Everything gPhone.