I have been following the news on this for quite some time and the final verdict is quite a disappointment. For those who doesn’t know what limitations I’m writing about, read this. Main thing I want to bring to your attention is that the Nexus One will not be able to play games that require multiple touch points on the screen for independent controls that are close to each other either on the X-axis or on the Y-axis.  Also, there is only support for 2 simultaneous touch points.

What this means is that games that requires a directional control pad on the left and action buttons on the right to mimic a console controller will behave oddly when you have both thumbs down on the screen because either of the 2 touch points will snap to the same X-axis or Y-axis of the other touch point.  Also, you will not be able to use features than needs more than 2 touch points simultaneously.

Because this is the way the touch sensor is designed, there is no software “fix” that can make it work like how iPhone users are used to.  Just for the record, it’s not broken. It’s the way the touch sensors are designed.

Quick facts about the touch screen

1. Nexus One touch sensor is the ClearPad 2000 from Synaptics
2. Supports simple 2-finger gestures only (like two-finger pinch zoom and maybe two-finger rotate)
3. Two moving touch points may swap their X-axis or Y-axis when they pass each other on either of the axes. (This does not break the functionality of point 2 above)
4. Single finger gestures still work as expected (flicking, scrolling, tapping)

Hope this information is helpful in your decision to get a super phone for complex multi touch applications or games. Personally, I rely more on double-tap-to-zoom than pinch-to-zoom in the month I have had my Nexus One. Anything more than one finger on my screen is blocking too much of what I want to see and I prefer to not have to use my other hand all the time. Multi-touch is overrated… or the grapes are just sour.