All Android phones only use internal storage for apps? Droid limited to 256MB
One of the things that no one has really talked about much on the Android platform is the limit of installing apps to the internal storage (news to us), and not on the external Flash micro SD cards. Apple allows you to install apps on the 8-64GB of storage that comes along with the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. AndroidandMe exposes this significant issue with the Google OS:
The Droid ships with a 512 MB ROM which contains only 256 MB available for app storage. Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create.
Google is all about the Cloud so this is likely something they've considered, but it will significantly limit what can be put on an Android phone like the Droid. 256MB is only enough for a few mid-sized games. If you build a 50MB app for the Android platform, how many people will give you 20% of their phone's app storage for it?
Update: It looks like there is a fairly easy way to hack the OS to store apps on SD cards. Also, apparently Google is working on this issue for an upcoming release. Another commenter says that apps can have calls to SD storage so all of the media can be stored externally. For instance, in a first person shooter, all of the bitmaps and graphics can be stored on the SD card while the application runs from the internal storage. So it might not be as big a deal as originally thought. Thanks commenters.
Somehow I think Apple will exploit this in an upcoming commercial. via DF.
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Comments (31)
Haha Everything iDon't Droid Does? What a joke. This is an important thing they just forgot to mention. No big deal.
Haha Everything iDon't Droid Does? What a joke. This is an important thing they just forgot to mention. No big deal.
I keep wondering what's that gold color square to the right of the keyboard, anyone any idea?
I believe it is for navigation... up, down, left, right...
thanks for the reply, so it's something like a 5 way navigation joystick like nokia's!
Haha Everything iDon't Droid Does? What a joke. This is an important thing they just forgot to mention. No big deal.
This surely cannot be true?
How could such a thing get past the design stages? I could believe it of the first Android phone, the G1, but not any of the more refined and modern variants.
It isn't true - you can install way more than that.. I had more than that on the G1 and it's easy to mod to put things on the SD card and have as much storage as you can bung in there.
It might be a feature of this particular phone but it is *not* part of android.
...because all phone consumers want to hack their phone? Think again.
It's true enough.
Hmmm
I'm a apple user, iPhone and I do not like anything else, but a friend told me that officially android is the limited to installing apps to the ROM but in real life you can do a partition to the MicroSD and use it to install apps :) don't hit me pls...
I have a question :
I use Spotify on my iPhone. I know it's not available in the US, but in a few words this app allows me to download music in the iPhone's cache, but WITHIN the app. Spotify is also available on Android phones. Do you see what I mean ? Would music be limited to this tiny ceiling ?
The modding community has solved the issue, and google is working on implementing it in an idiot proof way: http://www.androidspin.com/component/content/article/3-latest-news/237-google-looking-for-android-developers-for-apps2sd
Apps can store data files on the smart cards. So in theory the apps are limited to the 256MB, but by the same theory the apps are only a fraction of app store sizes because the data they reference (bitmaps, music, etc.) is stored on the smart cards.
google is working on implementing the modded solution to this problem: http://www.androidspin.com/component/content/article/3-latest-news/237-google-looking-for-android-developers-for-apps2sd
I work at Walmart in the connection center a few weeks ago the Verizon rep came in the tell us about this awesome new iPhone killer. She was saying how it has a better camera, a physical keyboard and so on.... She also went on to say and the "Android App Store". So I asked this device will play games? She stated better than the iPhone. I was like ok whateva, at this point I knew this woman was full of crap. I knew about this (App Memory) at the time she came in and now I am kicking myself in the ass for not saying something. Ohh well. This is great that it is Finally hitting the droiders. Good Luck guys....
While they might have limited install space out-of-the-box. Apps-to-SD is one main reason people root their phone. Also, Google is going to make this part of future Android OS by default (currently looking for devs). Oh and don't tell me iPhone is better because you don't have to root for this extra space, you guys do your share of rooting too.
No TomTom for you!
All FLASH memory is considered ROM - it is persistent read-only memory, unless erased via a special tunneling erase mechanism. Your CF card, SD card, and iPhone storage are all electronically-erasable ROM devices.
In the Android case, there is a special segment of Flash storage that is tightly controlled by the OS and the underlying hardware in order to prevent renegade apps from secretly modifying themselves, other apps, or the system.
To suddenly call this OS-protected Flash memory segment "ROM" is confusing at best. Nobody says that they have an iPhone with 16 GB of ROM.
Why not just say "the Android directory dedicated to apps is currently limited to X MB", instead of the bizarre statement that "Android apps have to fit into X MB of ROM"?
Ok so I see some of you are talking about a work around, or google is looking into it. Sounds like this would not be for your typical user. If the typical user wants a app and the phone states their is not enough space then they are gonna be like what the hell, I just bought a spankin new device (which they are not going to use half the features on, but ohh well) and it cant hold but a few games. Lets hope they make it easy for everyone, if not then big problems down the road.
How on earth do you come up with his crap saying they will "likely never" support apps on sd cards? Seems to me like they "likely will".
Why should you have to mod the device at all? You shouldn't.
I've been using the HTC Hero (512mb of ROM) on Android for over a month now. I have installed over a hundred apps of every kind including games (some of which have good 3d graphics) and so far, I have never ran out of memory.
I think this is a false debate as I probably never will run out of memory for these apps. And if ever I do one day, I'll just delete several useless apps I haven't been using for a while.
I'm sure the Android and mobile phone teams will improve this in future devices and software upgrades. Plus, we have some time until developpers come up with 50mo apps..
Not really a useless debate. You might not have had that problem, it doesn't mean it's a useless debate.
I have quite a few games on my iphone that are larger than 256MB each. Not to mention a ton of apps that are at least 50MB.
Check your facts.
Only 256MB of room for apps is a major showstopper.
The onscreen keyboard is almost as bad as the physical.
Multimedia is awful on the Droid.
Droid is a happy pig, happy pig, happy pig,
Droid is a selfish pig but a happy pig for sureee
LMAO !!
You can install apps on the SD... you can even install another version of Android on the SD and boot from it.
Most Android apps I have are less than 500k....so at 256MB, I can only install 500 apps. That's about 350 more than iPhone will let me use......with its 148 icon restriction.
Almost every Android app i have stores its *data* on the SDcard....so the "limit" isn't a problem unless you want to run really large, graphics-intensive apps.
I tried those on my iPod Touch...and they are barely usable. BIG games go best on bigger systems with bigger screens - like PCs or consoles.
Botton line: Android's "limit" is much less constraining than Apple's 148 icon limit and the iTunes police-state controlling what data goes in and out. On Android you can download / upload whatever you like...and any app can see any of that data at any time.
It is interesting reading through this as I just got a Droid last night and under the settings option/apps, it asks where i want to store my apps and i am presented with phone memory or sd card....which would lead one to believe their apps can be stored in phone memory or sd card. Either I am missing something (this is actually broken?) or there is a load of misinformation.