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Suppose I was previously using Media Player X and decide to try new Media Player Y. How does Media Player Y access the MP3s that were previously accessible to X

Suppose I was previously using Media Player X and decide to try new Media Player Y. How does Media Player Y access the MP3s that were previously accessible to X? Likewise, if I uninstall X, will my MP3s disappear? As far as user expectations go, MP3s, videos, word docs, and a whole slew of other file formats don't and shouldn't really belong to any application.

tadfisher 13y ago
The person you responded to neglected to mention Android's MediaStore provider, which can store common media in various standard directories on the SD card (like /DCIM and /Music), which has been the standard storage mechanism for media since 1.0 and is still available in Kit Kat.
- radley 13y ago
  MediaStore is a database, not a file system. It doesn't move, write, or "store" files. It just reads: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/MediaStore.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Medi...
  - fidotron 13y ago
    How naive you are! MediaStore is actually an unholy hybrid of database and filesystem. If you assume the data is entirely in one or the other (I mean, you didn't expect it to be consistent with itself, did you?) your code will break in different ways on different devices, since for some reason it's a favourite area of the manufacturers to play with.
  - tadfisher 13y ago
    No, it is a ContentProvider with a database-like API to which you have linked. The various system DocumentsProvider instances read and write to this provider. This is also the standard API you access through ContentResolver, and this is still present in Kit Kat.