Google has delivered the ultimate sucker punch to Apple by officially delivering multi-touch to the Nexus One. Google announced an over-the-air update Tuesday afternoon that’ll deliver native multi-touch functionality along with a handful of other software improvements and fixes.

If you are having difficult getting an automatic over-the-air update from Google, here is how to manually update your Google Nexus One.

This release comes amidst reports that Steve Jobs had a go at Google recently, saying that Google had encroached on Apple’s territory by going into the phone business when Apple hadn’t entered the search business. Apple and Google reportedly had a gentleman’s agreement that Android wouldn’t encroach on what Apple believed to be its property, certain multi-touch gestures, like pinch-to-zoom.

Of course, Google’s stance is that it was that Android 2.1 “powers a new class of devices” with more horsepower and bigger displays, and “based on these new capabilities and numerous requests from Android users, we decided to provide pinch-to-zoom capabilities with this new over-the-air software update for Nexus One devices.”

Palm and Microsoft’s Zune player also have multi-touch on them, which might be why Google seems ready to take the gamble to allow multi-touch on the Nexus One without incurring a possible patent suit from Apple.

The Apple vs. Google war is definitely heating up, and with the recent announcmenet of the iPad, Google already has new Chrome OS tablet mock-ups lined up. Apple have also just announced that they have released iPhone OS 3.1.3 to improve battery life & a couple of smaller fixes.

All the fixes with this update in detail:

Google Goggles: it is now available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web

Google Maps: upgraded to Google Maps 3.4, which will include:

• Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com – access your favorite places from your phone or computer
• Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history – makes it easy to search for places you’ve searched for before
• Night mode in Google Maps Navigation – automatically changes your screen at night for easier viewing and driving