Help Why can't I download to my sd card?

[Android Question]

I've given up on trying to make use of the relative ocean's worth of space on my SD card and resigned myself to squeezing apps in and out of my tablet's tiny internal storage. I'm not asking HOW to download to SD. Nowadays I want to know WHY we aren't allowed to download apps and data to SD out of the box.

If it's a security thing, then aren't there ways to require authentication (programming) code on internal memory and allow the app itself to live anywhere?

I just don't understand why my high-tech gadget was programmed to tell me that there are gigs and gigs of empty space on my SD card while at the same time telling me that I can't install a 50mb app because I don't have enough space.

 

[Hadron]

Ah, you want to install an app to SD. Sorry, but that's just not the way Android works these days, and the truth is that even when it did allow that (versions 2.2 and 2.3 only from most manufacturers) it wasn't really very good: it only allowed part of the app to be installed to SD. Given that sd cards are slower and less reliable than internal storage I can sort of see the point: the early Android phones had very little internal storage, but frankly these days it's so cheap there is no excuse for even a budget manufacturer not including adequate app storage on the phone, so there should be no need to do this. Conversely since Android 4 it's been possible to make the whole of the internal storage available for installing apps or media in whatever mix you like, though some off-brand manufacturers haven't seemed to realise this and have stuck with allocating a small space for apps and leaving the rest as media storage only.

You've not said what your phone is, but if a 50MB app is the problem I'm guessing it's either an old or a very limited device. You might be able to do more if you root the device (hack it to gain administrator access): if you tell us what model it is we might be able to help.