4 ms·

How is it embarrassing? WP7 was never claimed to support removable SD card storage. And it doesn't.

rbanffy 16y ago
It's embarrassing because each and every smartphone on the market that has an accessible SD card slot can deal with removable and expandable storage without requiring special, non-existent, "WP7-compatible" cards and without destroying incompatible cards users insert.
- Splines 16y ago
  WP7 isn't destroying the cards. It's locking them to the handset. WP7 doesn't use the card in the SD slot like your computer would. It's more synonymous with adding another disc to your RAID array. More info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831 Microsoft/AT&T have done a poor job of messaging this to the users. The fact that AT&T advertised these phones as having "expandable memory" doesn't help any.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - brunomlopes 16y ago
    Interesting, and it makes a bit of sense, even if it is counterintuitive. "It creates a single file system that spans the internal storage and the SD card." - Meaning that you don't worry about "shall I store this photo in the phone or in the card" and juggle disk space around after upgrading the memory.
  - wvenable 16y ago
    How does an SD card get locked to a handset? That doesn't seem like functionality that exists in SD cards.
    - Splines 16y ago
      It's part of the SD specification. See section 4.3.7.1: http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_... There are WP7 devs that are poking at this problem as well: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9247202 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9247202
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - Hoff 16y ago
    I don't personally prefer to subscribe to the "it's the user's fault" school of UI design. While sometimes a problem is the user's fault, it's not an auspicious starting position. If a UI design presents a slot or button or knob to an inexperienced user, then you should expect it's going to occasionally going to get poked at. Humans are an inquisitive lot, after all. And if some unique and irrevocable things happen that's also specific to your device, then you're going to lead an inquisitive user to have a problem. Particularly if the slot is commonly used for transferring data in and out of other similar devices. Most folks don't encounter and don't poke at RAID disk arrays. Most folks do shuffle files and pictures in and out of handhelds and laptops and cameras via SD. If you're aiming for the former audience and your product happens to be bought in droves by the latter (and as is increasingly arising with SOHO and consumer-facing RAID devices, for that matter), you've missed your target product audience, and you're going to have product acceptance problems. Worse for WP7, this particular case likely arises among the more inquisitive members of your target audience, and this is likely also the same group that can be your early adopters and your best proponents.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > WP7 isn't destroying the cards. It's locking them to the handset. Oh... It renders them unusable on any other device but the one you inserted them into... > Microsoft/AT&T have done a poor job of messaging this to the users. I think the OEM (was it HTC?) should have placed the SD slot under a metal cover you would have to unscrew before you even saw the card.
- mirkules 16y ago
  The iPhone doesn't have removable and expandable storage. Nonetheless, I consider that to be an essential smartphone feature. A related note: What is Microsoft thinking coupling the performance of a phone to performance of an SD card?! Architecturally, I can't see a good reason (unless my assumption that the phone has internal storage is actually wrong)
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    If they are adding the SD card to the storage pool of the phone forming a single filesystem, then a slow SD card will harm the performance of the whole phone. Why would anyone consider implementing it this way is beyond me.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  > "has an accessible SD card slot can deal with removable and expandable storage" And suffers greatly reduced usability as a result. Let's be honest, average users don't care to decide where everything goes - many won't even know what this means. When one downloads a funny cat picture from the internet, nobody wants to be asked "to internal memory or SD?". Nor do people want to mentally track which files are on what card, nor do they want to break their music library metadata because a song is on a card no longer in the machine. Yadi yada, the number of ways removable storage (as a primary storage medium, which it is in most smartphones... minimal internal + large removable) harms the user experience is infinite. What makes WP7 microSD compelling is that it's an upgrade path - which is how people treat removable storage when it comes to smartphones. The fact that the entire experience is unified helps greatly too - your extra capacity is seamless to the user. If anything, MS is the first smartphone maker to do removable/expandable storage right. Now, it would be nice to be able to recover a card for normal everyday use after you're done with it, but all in all that's a fairly minor complaint. Like someone else mentioned, you're adding a disk to a RAID, not a gameboy cartridge to ta Game Boy.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    > And suffers greatly reduced usability as a result. How so? I cannot remember a single issue I had with my phones because of it. It's true I was, about once every phone, confronted with a daunting 2-choice menu asking me where would I like my photos and recorded audio to be stored. > If anything, MS is the first smartphone maker to do removable/expandable storage right. You are most likely kidding. > Like someone else mentioned, you're adding a disk to a RAID And that's a concept my grandma would easily grasp... No. It's not a usability issue. It's a design flaw that has to be disguised as a feature because they had to launch the product.
    - runjake 16y ago
      - He's not kidding and he may have a point. Upon further analysis, Microsoft's storage scheme seems pretty solid. And they focus on random access speeds when it comes to SD cards, too. It seems like a welcome contrast to the external storage mess Android is in. I think if it were Apple doing this, it'd be labeled as a brilliant move. - Your grandma isn't even going to be taking off the battery cover, let alone swapping tiny microSDHC cards. - Cautiously, I'd say Microsoft might want to keep this scheme going. It certainly seems better than the more drastic measures phones like the iPhone and HP/Palm phones take (soldered on, non-upgradeable storage).
runjake 16y ago
Touche. Well, a partial touche. If they were meant to be non-end user slots, they probably shouldn't look and be accessible like end user slots. (and yes there are warning stickers on some units' slots, but as an example, the fresh-out-of-box Samsung Focus I examined did not have this sticker). But! I explored this issue in much more depth and apparently the use of non-end user microSDHC slots allows manufacturers to offer more SKUs easily, without having to solder flash onto boards. ALSO apparently, this was brought up by the OEMs during the manufacturing phase and Microsoft suggested they ought to glue the cards in place. So, (touche * 0.5)

It's embarrassing because each and every smartphone on the market that has an accessible SD card slot can deal with removable and expandable storage without requiring special, non-existent, "WP7-compatible" cards and without destroying incompatible cards users insert.

Splines 16y ago
WP7 isn't destroying the cards. It's locking them to the handset. WP7 doesn't use the card in the SD slot like your computer would. It's more synonymous with adding another disc to your RAID array. More info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831 Microsoft/AT&T have done a poor job of messaging this to the users. The fact that AT&T advertised these phones as having "expandable memory" doesn't help any.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- brunomlopes 16y ago
  Interesting, and it makes a bit of sense, even if it is counterintuitive. "It creates a single file system that spans the internal storage and the SD card." - Meaning that you don't worry about "shall I store this photo in the phone or in the card" and juggle disk space around after upgrading the memory.
- wvenable 16y ago
  How does an SD card get locked to a handset? That doesn't seem like functionality that exists in SD cards.
  - Splines 16y ago
    It's part of the SD specification. See section 4.3.7.1: http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_... There are WP7 devs that are poking at this problem as well: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9247202 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9247202
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- Hoff 16y ago
  I don't personally prefer to subscribe to the "it's the user's fault" school of UI design. While sometimes a problem is the user's fault, it's not an auspicious starting position. If a UI design presents a slot or button or knob to an inexperienced user, then you should expect it's going to occasionally going to get poked at. Humans are an inquisitive lot, after all. And if some unique and irrevocable things happen that's also specific to your device, then you're going to lead an inquisitive user to have a problem. Particularly if the slot is commonly used for transferring data in and out of other similar devices. Most folks don't encounter and don't poke at RAID disk arrays. Most folks do shuffle files and pictures in and out of handhelds and laptops and cameras via SD. If you're aiming for the former audience and your product happens to be bought in droves by the latter (and as is increasingly arising with SOHO and consumer-facing RAID devices, for that matter), you've missed your target product audience, and you're going to have product acceptance problems. Worse for WP7, this particular case likely arises among the more inquisitive members of your target audience, and this is likely also the same group that can be your early adopters and your best proponents.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > WP7 isn't destroying the cards. It's locking them to the handset. Oh... It renders them unusable on any other device but the one you inserted them into... > Microsoft/AT&T have done a poor job of messaging this to the users. I think the OEM (was it HTC?) should have placed the SD slot under a metal cover you would have to unscrew before you even saw the card.
mirkules 16y ago
The iPhone doesn't have removable and expandable storage. Nonetheless, I consider that to be an essential smartphone feature. A related note: What is Microsoft thinking coupling the performance of a phone to performance of an SD card?! Architecturally, I can't see a good reason (unless my assumption that the phone has internal storage is actually wrong)
- rbanffy 16y ago
  If they are adding the SD card to the storage pool of the phone forming a single filesystem, then a slow SD card will harm the performance of the whole phone. Why would anyone consider implementing it this way is beyond me.
potatolicious 16y ago
> "has an accessible SD card slot can deal with removable and expandable storage" And suffers greatly reduced usability as a result. Let's be honest, average users don't care to decide where everything goes - many won't even know what this means. When one downloads a funny cat picture from the internet, nobody wants to be asked "to internal memory or SD?". Nor do people want to mentally track which files are on what card, nor do they want to break their music library metadata because a song is on a card no longer in the machine. Yadi yada, the number of ways removable storage (as a primary storage medium, which it is in most smartphones... minimal internal + large removable) harms the user experience is infinite. What makes WP7 microSD compelling is that it's an upgrade path - which is how people treat removable storage when it comes to smartphones. The fact that the entire experience is unified helps greatly too - your extra capacity is seamless to the user. If anything, MS is the first smartphone maker to do removable/expandable storage right. Now, it would be nice to be able to recover a card for normal everyday use after you're done with it, but all in all that's a fairly minor complaint. Like someone else mentioned, you're adding a disk to a RAID, not a gameboy cartridge to ta Game Boy.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > And suffers greatly reduced usability as a result. How so? I cannot remember a single issue I had with my phones because of it. It's true I was, about once every phone, confronted with a daunting 2-choice menu asking me where would I like my photos and recorded audio to be stored. > If anything, MS is the first smartphone maker to do removable/expandable storage right. You are most likely kidding. > Like someone else mentioned, you're adding a disk to a RAID And that's a concept my grandma would easily grasp... No. It's not a usability issue. It's a design flaw that has to be disguised as a feature because they had to launch the product.
  - runjake 16y ago
    - He's not kidding and he may have a point. Upon further analysis, Microsoft's storage scheme seems pretty solid. And they focus on random access speeds when it comes to SD cards, too. It seems like a welcome contrast to the external storage mess Android is in. I think if it were Apple doing this, it'd be labeled as a brilliant move. - Your grandma isn't even going to be taking off the battery cover, let alone swapping tiny microSDHC cards. - Cautiously, I'd say Microsoft might want to keep this scheme going. It certainly seems better than the more drastic measures phones like the iPhone and HP/Palm phones take (soldered on, non-upgradeable storage).

runjake 16y ago

Touche. Well, a partial touche. If they were meant to be non-end user slots, they probably shouldn't look and be accessible like end user slots. (and yes there are warning stickers on some units' slots, but as an example, the fresh-out-of-box Samsung Focus I examined did not have this sticker). But! I explored this issue in much more depth and apparently the use of non-end user microSDHC slots allows manufacturers to offer more SKUs easily, without having to solder flash onto boards. ALSO apparently, this was brought up by the OEMs during the manufacturing phase and Microsoft suggested they ought to glue the cards in place. So, (touche * 0.5)