Samsung implemented multi-window exactly as Google wanted: opt-in instead of opt-out or forced. I highly doubt the Android team is unhappy about that. Several top Google apps support it (Chrome, Gmail, Maps, Talk and YouTube, judging from my Note 2). Given that (and the many other windowing hacks I've seen including ones by such obscure companies as Facebook and Sony) I expect some sort of cleaner, official multi/floating window support to be coming in a future version of Android. I would have even predicted next week before the rumor mill started saying to expect 4.3, not 5.0
I wouldn't mind multiview becoming the norm with official Android API support for apps made to support it. I didn't realize Samsung made it opt-in, but that makes much more sense and calms my fears about it. We can already have multiple fragments displayed in an app, so it would make sense the next logical step is to have multiple apps open with some limitations and restrictions via official support in the Android API.
Just curious, but did support for it (for Google Apps) come at the Note 2 release or after its release?
I believe it came with the Note 2 release (though possibly not with some specific models, like the US ones). I got my (international) Note 2 a few weeks after it came out and, IIRC, I had a least a couple of multi-window Google apps (maybe Chrome and Maps but not Gmail and YouTube?) from day one.
From what I remember, the Note 10.1 (which came out a few months earlier) was much more limited on that front - only some Samsung apps supported multi-window, but that seemed to help pave the way for the Note 2 (and improved support on the 10.1, of course).
The multi-window feature and the google app support were available with the note 1 with the android 4.x update. Adding support is almost trivial with it being a few XML lines.
There are also mods that let you multi-window any app which makes the feature much more useful.
