Multitouch zooming feels very natural on Dell Streak
I've never been a fan of two-finger multitouch zooming. I thought it was amazing the first time I saw it and couldn't stop showing it off on the original iPhone back in 2007, but the novelty wore off quickly and I rarely used it after that. Double-tap zooming has always worked better for me because it's faster, more accurate, and doesn't require a shift in hand position.
On the Dell Streak, however, multitouch zooming feels so intuitive and completely natural that it's actually enjoyable.
Whenever I pinch-zoom on anything else, I hold the device with one hand and "pinch/spread" with the other hand's thumb and index finger. The initial thought of doing this on the Streak was very unappealing given the device's size and my predominant landscape usage.
But when I discovered that double-tap zooming isn't supported in the stock web browser, I knew that I'd have to get used to two-finger zooming instead . . . just as soon as I needed to zoom into something. Since there isn't much need to zoom because of the Streak's 5-inch screen and WVGA resolution, I ended up forgetting about it.
Then one day while I was reading a website, I zoomed out to see the whole page without really thinking about it. Since I was holding the Streak between my hands, my thumbs automatically reached out and "pulled" the page toward the edges of the screen. It was such a natural motion that I didn't even realize I did it; and I never pinch-zoom with my thumbs.
So I now have a new-found respect for multitouch zooming.
I don't have to make use of it very often and it can sometimes be little counter-intuitive on the Streak because the stock browser doesn't reflow text (so if you zoom in too much, horizontal scrolling rears its ugly head), but I'm glad it's part of the device's list of features.
