The good news for Google's Android mobile operating system: It's finally getting a lot of good support from mobile phone manufacturers and carriers.

The bad news: Because so many different companies are involved in the mix, it's at risk of becoming very confusing and fragmented. That's already starting to happen.

For example: Let's look at just one feature -- support for multi-touch "pinch" zooming -- on the two sexy Android phones that Verizon Wireless introduced this week.

That's the cool feature on some smartphones that lets you zoom in and out on a Web site, map, or photo by "pinching" your fingers open and closed on the screen. (As iPhone and Palm Pre owners know, once you have it, you won't want to live without it.)

But if you're a Verizon Wireless sales rep, good luck explaining this to your customers:

• The Motorola Droid's Android 2.0 OS supports multi-touch out of the box, but Google and Motorola haven't turned it on for any of the phone's built-in apps.


• So the Droid's Web browser, Google Maps, and built-in photo app do not support pinch zooming.


• Some third