iOS 5 Will Remove Multi-Touch Gestures From Your Original iPad

We’re afraid it’s not all good news today. With the entire iPhone, iPad and iPod touch-owning public eagerly awaiting the public release of iOS 5, all is not rosy on the iOS front, especially if you happen to be a proud owner of the first-generation iPad.

If you’ve grown comfortable with the multi-touch gestures Apple added earlier this year to the iPad, you’re going to be in for a shock when your iPad restarts after installing iOS 5, for those same gestures will be gone. Lost forever…

The gestures themselves, for their part, were never actually a shipping feature. Enabled via Xcode and branded as “for developers only,” the gestures offered four and five finger swipes and pinches that would allow switching between apps, opening the multitasking tray, and returning to the home screen. Some liked them, most loved them, but they’re going away now, thanks to iOS 5.

Oddly, the iPad 2 will continue to take advantage of these four and five finger gestures.

If you’re hooked on your multitasking gestures and you own an original iPad, you currently have two choices. Either don’t update to iOS 5, and miss out on all that it has to offer, or wait and jailbreak your device after the update and find a tweak that re-enables the gestures.

[TNW]