6 ms·

1. launch all flagship phones without sd slot to force use of gdrive 2. everyone buys other companies (budget?) phones because they have more features (eg sd c

by gcb0 13y ago

1. launch all flagship phones without sd slot to force use of gdrive 2. everyone buys other companies (budget?) phones because they have more features (eg sd card slot) 3. break that in software (because they can) so that feature is not "missing" on the flagships anymore. 4. instead of just removing, make the functionality be yet another entry point to gdrive by making the sd write api be analogous to the cloud write one. google only fear to not fuck up like that was something like cyanogenmod, but, well...

samstave 13y ago
At this point in my life; I am ready to challenge any design team of any mobile device which decides to leave out expandable [micro]SD storage to a bout of the fisticuffs. There is absolutely NO reason any mobile device should lack this. [This is ESPECIALLY aimed at Mr. Smug; Ive]
- sitkack 13y ago
  How else would they up sell to the 64GB model? What if a device I bought 3 years ago could be still relevant by just upgrading an inexpensive flash card? Not only is so restrictive as to be insulting, it harms the environment by forcing devices to die a premature death, I know my iPad 1 would be a whole lot more useful with a 64GB SDHC card in it. I was super stoked to buy a Google Nexus tablet, after finding out there was no SD card slot, I forever declined that purchase.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I have a Galaxy Nexus that is barely supported by Google now, and its just a little over 2 years old. Going to recycle it and buy a Nexus 5. I'm just a bit too old (31) to care anymore. No SD card? Whatevs. I'll use Dropbox/Evernote/Amazon's MP3 Player with wifi to get whatever I need onto the phone.
    - gcb0 13y ago
      sadly, you are probably the norm nowadays. a shame.
  - gcb0 13y ago
    Hear hear. I'm still using a nexus One. ONE. now, had i been using stock image on that device... first it would be full of crapware that i couldn't uninstal. and since the available space is something like 250mb for apps, i wouldn't even be able to install 2 apps. now, i've spent $500 on it. why should i already replace it if it does exactly what I need? just so i can have NFC? ha! no SD? ha! even less, non replaceable, battery life? ha! (i use an extended SEIDIO battery). no trackball with extremely visible and customizable full color alert led? ha! the only thing it misses is a better screen some time. but i like the size, so i won't be switching to a fullHD phone with a phablet screen size. to fix it. Also the OLED screen is awesome to read at night. Ironically because of software, by features REMOVED on android after 2.3. on 2.3 on my custom roms i can have smart inverted colors in the browser. I don't have to choose between white on black pages with inverted images or bright pages with correct color images. i can have both! Also i can enable night mode render effects. Good lucky doing any of that on your shinny nexus 5.
- madeofpalk 13y ago
  You've got it the wrong way around. There are less and less reasons as to why devices need physical external storage.
  - JohnTHaller 13y ago
    No, there are more and more reasons... (1) We have more and more things we'd like to carry with us that take up more and more space. (2) Fewer and fewer people in America and other countries have unlimited data plans. (3) Lots of us take things like subways which have no internet access. (4) Cloud privacy is a disaster thanks to the NSA, poor security implementations at cloud companies, regular intrusions of providers, regular intrusions of network infrastructure (example: ASUS and Netgear routers), etc (5) Obscene markups of memory sizes above base by manufacturers (6) Inability of consumers to get many phones with more than 32GB of storage and artificial limiting of supply on some providers (see: the incredibly stupid decision to make the HTC One 64GB an AT&T exclusive) (7) etc etc Yes, Google wants you to use the cloud and have everything in your Google Drive. For most of us, it's a bad idea from a financial, convenience and privacy perspective.
- coldtea 13y ago
  Maybe also add a floppy drive to the requirements. And RS-232.
  - samstave 13y ago
    What is the max capacity in micro SD cards could you fit in the physical volume of a 3.5" floppy?
    - zimpenfish 13y ago
      tl;dr: "Bloody loads" According to [1], a 3.5" floppy has a volume of 27828.9 mm^3 whilst the volume of a MicroSD is 132 mm^3. That's a ratio of 210. Biggest MicroSD I can find that's commonly available is 64GB; that gives you (27828.9/132)*64GB = 13492GB or ~13.5TB Which is an astonishing data density when you eventually wrap your head around it. [1] http://www.fileformat.info/media/measurements.htm http://www.fileformat.info/media/measurements.htm
      - zimpenfish 13y ago
        Cheapest MicroSD 64GB I can find is GBP36.98 which makes that 13.5TB a mere GBP7,765.8. Compare with 3TB drives at GBP87.12 (the current sweet spot) - 13.5TB would be GBP392.04 (~20x cheaper).
  - gcb0 13y ago
    I'd take a serial port...
- mikeash 13y ago
  If you somehow get Mr. Ive to accept your challenge, please make sure you get good video of the event.
magicalist 13y ago
On the contrary, the Storage Access Framework is an awesome development and how Google should integrate more of its play services: by having a provider agnostic API that fits their service as well as any other. Anyone can be a SAF file provider by implementing the interface, and it's as easy as Intents to switch between them. It's silly to have "external" storage with special behavior at this point. Storage should act like storage, and apps should access that data consistently, without users having to remember which storage they're using for any particular purpose. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/document-provider.html https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen...
- x0054 13y ago
  However, this new infrastructure precludes file management apps.
  - bdonlan 13y ago
    I don't see why you couldn't have a file management app that uses the new storage access framework to access external storage in the same way as online or internal storage - shouldn't it just be a matter of switching to the new API?
    - radley 13y ago
      There's no write in the new API. Only read: "The SAF makes it simple for users to browse and open documents, images, and other files across all of their their preferred document storage providers."
      - tadfisher 13y ago
        That's not true, you can ask any DocumentsProvider to delete or edit a file resource given a valid URI. Whether or not the DocumentsProvider that owns the resource will acknowledge your request is up to the DocumentsProvider.
    - tadfisher 13y ago

by gcb0 13y ago

samstave 13y ago

At this point in my life; I am ready to challenge any design team of any mobile device which decides to leave out expandable [micro]SD storage to a bout of the fisticuffs. There is absolutely NO reason any mobile device should lack this. [This is ESPECIALLY aimed at Mr. Smug; Ive]

sitkack 13y ago
How else would they up sell to the 64GB model? What if a device I bought 3 years ago could be still relevant by just upgrading an inexpensive flash card? Not only is so restrictive as to be insulting, it harms the environment by forcing devices to die a premature death, I know my iPad 1 would be a whole lot more useful with a 64GB SDHC card in it. I was super stoked to buy a Google Nexus tablet, after finding out there was no SD card slot, I forever declined that purchase.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I have a Galaxy Nexus that is barely supported by Google now, and its just a little over 2 years old. Going to recycle it and buy a Nexus 5. I'm just a bit too old (31) to care anymore. No SD card? Whatevs. I'll use Dropbox/Evernote/Amazon's MP3 Player with wifi to get whatever I need onto the phone.
  - gcb0 13y ago
    sadly, you are probably the norm nowadays. a shame.
- gcb0 13y ago
  Hear hear. I'm still using a nexus One. ONE. now, had i been using stock image on that device... first it would be full of crapware that i couldn't uninstal. and since the available space is something like 250mb for apps, i wouldn't even be able to install 2 apps. now, i've spent $500 on it. why should i already replace it if it does exactly what I need? just so i can have NFC? ha! no SD? ha! even less, non replaceable, battery life? ha! (i use an extended SEIDIO battery). no trackball with extremely visible and customizable full color alert led? ha! the only thing it misses is a better screen some time. but i like the size, so i won't be switching to a fullHD phone with a phablet screen size. to fix it. Also the OLED screen is awesome to read at night. Ironically because of software, by features REMOVED on android after 2.3. on 2.3 on my custom roms i can have smart inverted colors in the browser. I don't have to choose between white on black pages with inverted images or bright pages with correct color images. i can have both! Also i can enable night mode render effects. Good lucky doing any of that on your shinny nexus 5.
madeofpalk 13y ago
You've got it the wrong way around. There are less and less reasons as to why devices need physical external storage.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  No, there are more and more reasons... (1) We have more and more things we'd like to carry with us that take up more and more space. (2) Fewer and fewer people in America and other countries have unlimited data plans. (3) Lots of us take things like subways which have no internet access. (4) Cloud privacy is a disaster thanks to the NSA, poor security implementations at cloud companies, regular intrusions of providers, regular intrusions of network infrastructure (example: ASUS and Netgear routers), etc (5) Obscene markups of memory sizes above base by manufacturers (6) Inability of consumers to get many phones with more than 32GB of storage and artificial limiting of supply on some providers (see: the incredibly stupid decision to make the HTC One 64GB an AT&T exclusive) (7) etc etc Yes, Google wants you to use the cloud and have everything in your Google Drive. For most of us, it's a bad idea from a financial, convenience and privacy perspective.
coldtea 13y ago
Maybe also add a floppy drive to the requirements. And RS-232.
- samstave 13y ago
  What is the max capacity in micro SD cards could you fit in the physical volume of a 3.5" floppy?
  - zimpenfish 13y ago
    tl;dr: "Bloody loads" According to [1], a 3.5" floppy has a volume of 27828.9 mm^3 whilst the volume of a MicroSD is 132 mm^3. That's a ratio of 210. Biggest MicroSD I can find that's commonly available is 64GB; that gives you (27828.9/132)*64GB = 13492GB or ~13.5TB Which is an astonishing data density when you eventually wrap your head around it. [1] http://www.fileformat.info/media/measurements.htm http://www.fileformat.info/media/measurements.htm
    - zimpenfish 13y ago
      Cheapest MicroSD 64GB I can find is GBP36.98 which makes that 13.5TB a mere GBP7,765.8. Compare with 3TB drives at GBP87.12 (the current sweet spot) - 13.5TB would be GBP392.04 (~20x cheaper).
- gcb0 13y ago
  I'd take a serial port...
mikeash 13y ago
If you somehow get Mr. Ive to accept your challenge, please make sure you get good video of the event.

magicalist 13y ago

On the contrary, the Storage Access Framework is an awesome development and how Google should integrate more of its play services: by having a provider agnostic API that fits their service as well as any other. Anyone can be a SAF file provider by implementing the interface, and it's as easy as Intents to switch between them. It's silly to have "external" storage with special behavior at this point. Storage should act like storage, and apps should access that data consistently, without users having to remember which storage they're using for any particular purpose. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/document-provider.html https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen...

x0054 13y ago
However, this new infrastructure precludes file management apps.
- bdonlan 13y ago
  I don't see why you couldn't have a file management app that uses the new storage access framework to access external storage in the same way as online or internal storage - shouldn't it just be a matter of switching to the new API?
  - radley 13y ago
    There's no write in the new API. Only read: "The SAF makes it simple for users to browse and open documents, images, and other files across all of their their preferred document storage providers."
    - tadfisher 13y ago
      That's not true, you can ask any DocumentsProvider to delete or edit a file resource given a valid URI. Whether or not the DocumentsProvider that owns the resource will acknowledge your request is up to the DocumentsProvider.
  - tadfisher 13y ago