Why is Android so behind in storage capacity?

[ssstraub]

Hello from Milwaukee, nateo200.

The fact is Android does not "need" more than that for its internal memory. Period.

That is your opinion. If it was a fact that it didn't need more internal memory, then we'd never see the memory go up in the devices, and it already has done so. Didn't the G1 have only 128 MB?

You can buy as many SD cards you want and load as many apps as you want. I have installed over 200 apps and I am still not below 50% storage space on my internal memory. I dont even use close to half of said apps. Everything that requires large storage space goes to the SD Card.

I am only somewhat concerned with apps, though you are missing the points I've already raised that apps are only going to get larger in the future and developers are already purposely limiting the size of their apps because of this problem.

I use my phone as my PMP. If I go with an Android phone, I only get the equivalent of a something like an iPod Nano. If I go with an Apple or Nokia phone, I can replace an iPod Touch, Zune HD, etc, simply because they offer comparable levels of storage.

The same experience simply cannot be provided by using multiple cards (unless the device can take multiple cards simultaneously--that'd be great!). Having to swap cards in and out breaks down the whole paradigm of a PMP. The reason PMPs became popular in the first place is because one device carried your whole library with no need to swap tapes, CDs, etc.

1. All my smart playlists and even most regular playlists would break, because it would be referring to some data that's available and some that's not, no matter which card is inserted.
2. Usually the phone has to be powered off (and sometimes the battery removed) to swap cards.
3. You have to carry the cards around with you everywhere and not lose them.

 

[ssstraub]

I made a poll here.

 

[mrthundercleese]

Wow how many times are we going to beat this dead horse? Android devices have little internal memory and the swappable memory isn't as much as other devices but is swappable. Blackberries share the same fate and RIM sells tons of those (RIM sells more devices than apple does BTW).

What are you reeeealy looking to do with all that memory? Bragging rights? Will you fill it by the time you move on to a new device? For the majority of users the answer is negative.

So from a manufacturer's point of view, I can put a big fat high res screen on it and save on the memory . The majority of my users will not fill it up anyway. We win some we lose some.

 

[itpromike]

That's completely absurd. I'm not going to waste my time explaining why that makes no sense.


Here's the thing: PHONES HAVE MANY COMPONENTS. The internal memory is just one aspect. Each company designs and manufactures their phones completely different. And on top of that they decide how much a phone should cost differently. It is wrong to expect the price of a phone to be directly proportional to how much memory it has.

If phones had only one component, the memory, this topic might be worthwhile. But they don't. So this topic is pointless. I don't even know where you got the idea that all non android phones have lots of internal memory for the same price. It's just not true.

Somehow I think you're either missing a simple fact or are being dense on purpose. That fact is while your point above is valid that phones are made of different components, the other valid point to keep in mind is that the iPhone is MORE expensive to make being as you so eloquently put it "phones are made of more than just memory" the hardware in the iPhone (3GS specifically) is beefier than most Android phones today. I would even go as far as to say that it's beefier than all the Android phones to date but I'll just say most as there could be one or two obscure Andriod phones that I don't know about that have really high spec hardware. As far as processing power, graphics power, and the chipset and quality of memory, not to mention the amount of memory (internal RAM as well as storage) the iPhone 3GS is better hardware with better specs and larger storage that sells for the same price point as Android phones. That being said, your comments about phones being made up of more than just memory that associate with the cost only proves the original posters point even further. Android should really include not only more storage but better video recording and graphics processing power.

 

[itpromike]

Wow how many times are we going to beat this dead horse? Android devices have little internal memory and the swappable memory isn't as much as other devices but is swappable. Blackberries share the same fate and RIM sells tons of those (RIM sells more devices than apple does BTW).

What are you reeeealy looking to do with all that memory? Bragging rights? Will you fill it by the time you move on to a new device? For the majority of users the answer is negative.

So from a manufacturer's point of view, I can put a big fat high res screen on it and save on the memory . The majority of my users will not fill it up anyway. We win some we lose some.

Just to stay factual here, Apple has sold more units than RIM since the latter half of 08.

 

[CDWilliams05]

To those that carry their ENTIRE library on a mobile device. I have a couple of questions. Do you and have you in the time you have had your ENTIRE library on the device watched/listen/read all of it from that device,? My entire Library is about 25-30 gig in size, according to the last time I checked my media server. (About a weeks worth of straight play time.) I can load up 8 gig of music, and I probably wouldn't hear the same song twice in a long weekend of rather constant listening, (~4-8 hours a day). You can (if you know what you are doing) rip a movie down to about 500-600mb (standard Resolution, haven't played with video on a mobile yet), so for simple math at 500mb a piece that's 16 full length standard res movies, and the average movie is about and 1.5 hours long, so thats 24 hours straight of video. Do you really need to have your ENTIRE collection on a PMP? And if you do, do you have it also on your Local PC, or a backup server/service of some kind? It must be a pain everytime a new PMP comes out, that you have to transfer you ENTIRE collection to the new device, after coping everything back to your Home Device (laptop, PC, Server)

I think what I am trying to point out is okay you have your ENTIRE collection on your PMP, while cool for bragging rights. Is it really practical? It seems like to me you are filling up the space simply because you paid for the space. Are you really away from your home that long, that you would burn through your entire collection in a long weekend?

I do understand that their are caveats to everything. I know the business man whose gone for months before he comes back home, and truckers who are on the road all the time. However I don't think that is part of the demographic in this discussion.

I load up my phone about once a week, a couple of movies that I can always watch, and some tunes. The most I've put on is about 8-10 gig total. And never listened or watching the same thing twice, in a normal work week. So I guess the grand question/statement I am trying to make is this. What's the point of having a everything at once on a player device? My taste and mood varies from week to week, sometimes day by day. Sometime what I load up I don't even feel like listening to, in that case I ask a colleague a band he likes plug it into pandora and check out something totally different.

I don't know, Just my long opinion on this dead horse, and looking for the reasoning of buying these large capacity PMPs.

 

[CDWilliams05]

Somehow I think you're either missing a simple fact or are being dense on purpose. That fact is while your point above is valid that phones are made of different components, the other valid point to keep in mind is that the iPhone is MORE expensive to make being as you so eloquently put it "phones are made of more than just memory" the hardware in the iPhone (3GS specifically) is beefier than most Android phones today. I would even go as far as to say that it's beefier than all the Android phones to date but I'll just say most as there could be one or two obscure Andriod phones that I don't know about that have really high spec hardware. As far as processing power, graphics power, and the chipset and quality of memory, not to mention the amount of memory (internal RAM as well as storage) the iPhone 3GS is better hardware with better specs and larger storage that sells for the same price point as Android phones. That being said, your comments about phones being made up of more than just memory that associate with the cost only proves the original posters point even further. Android should really include not only more storage but better video recording and graphics processing power.

you have to admit however that even though you concider the iPhone 3gs to be the pinnacle of phone tech, you do have to concede that there are some major design flaws. Lack of user access to battery and memory expansion being the big two. The phone being on one of the more unreliable networks (in my area, is the only quality I can speak of, don't get on your horses just yet). The few dozen I have seen, after a drop have a crack in the glass.

The one thing I will give apple, is they have come up with a very expandable "end-user" intuitive GUI. But the design, and choice of networks really put a damper on it for me.

 

[blinky]

I like the external storage option available on the Droid, but iPhone is better for video because it is better to play movies from internal memory than from an microSD card.

 

[vonfeldt7]

Dear topic starter: Let me solve your problem once and for all.

You do NOT want to use your phone (unless you have an iPhone) as your PMP. If you have ever used any media manager on any phone ever (excluding iPhone) you would know that they're all crap. This is especially true for the default rubbish music player.

Problem solved. You're welcome.

 

[ari-free]

the iPhone also has smaller screen/lower resolution

 

[Durf]

Lmao. Again and again this thread has flame bait written all over it.
I bought my g1 and now mt3g because they are android based. I can root it and run scripts on it. I run app2sd and have a 3 partition sd, swap, ext, and fat. I tether my iPod touch, I write a little code with sdk/eclipse, I overclock, and I run cyanogen, nandroid, and theme it however I want. It has enough storage both internally and externally for ME.
Like stated before, if it doesn't have enough, move along and get what works for you and stop wasting everyone time with your hypothetical engineering. There are many other reasons why a particular device has a particular cofiguration. Parts availability and quantities, thermal demands, cost, packaging, and yes, I've been there. I am an engineer.
Sorry to sound so harsh but cmon, everyone is making the same points over and over again.
Oh and liked that vonfelt. Good points. Why I tether my iPod as well. Other than the iPhone/iPod touch, they all suck for media systems.

 

[brykins]

Having used an iPhone for six months, Blackberries for three years and an Android for two months, I am going to jump in on this thread.

Blackberries share the same fate and RIM sells tons of those (RIM sells more devices than apple does BTW).

Considering we're talking here about APP storage more than anything else, comparing to Balckberry isn't very valid. In my experience, there arre very few apps worth having on a Blackberry, certainly very few games (which tend to be the larger apps). Almost everyone I know with a Blackberry has installed Facebook, a Twitter client, MSN and that's about it.

What are you reeeealy looking to do with all that memory? Bragging rights? Will you fill it by the time you move on to a new device? For the majority of users the answer is negative.

Currently, the answer is negative. But the OP (and myself) is concerned about the future. People are signing 18month minimum contracts on these phones and the rapid development of software for them means that many people may well fill up a number of Gb with future applications. Android phones don't currently APPEAR to be very future-proof.

Example - iPhone users ALL get software upgrades to the latest version, don't they? No iPhone user (currently) has to worry about a new app working on his version of the OS. Android users are not going to have this luxury. My son has a Pulse with 1.5 on it, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that it will get 1.6 or 2.0. How long before app developers are writing software that is (a) too large for his internal storage and (b) wouldn't work on 1.5 anyway?

I see that this issue, OS updates and internal storage, WILL hamper the mass take-up of Android phones. Joe Average consumer will look at 256Mb internal storage compared to 16Gb (or even 32Gb) of an alternative and will just see that number, nothing more.

 

[itpromike]

you have to admit however that even though you concider the iPhone 3gs to be the pinnacle of phone tech, you do have to concede that there are some major design flaws. Lack of user access to battery and memory expansion being the big two. The phone being on one of the more unreliable networks (in my area, is the only quality I can speak of, don't get on your horses just yet). The few dozen I have seen, after a drop have a crack in the glass.

The one thing I will give apple, is they have come up with a very expandable "end-user" intuitive GUI. But the design, and choice of networks really put a damper on it for me.

While I hear what you're saying and can even see where you're coming from, the concessions that you are proposing are purely subjective and have nothing to do with actual 'design flaws':

1.) Lack of user access to battery and memory expansion - You're right that the iPhone doesn't have either of these but this is not a 'design flaw' but rather a different ideology when it comes to quality of build design and sturdy construction. You'll understand what I mean when you drop an iPhone on concrete (like I have) and it gets nicked up and keeps on ticking then some time later you drop your Android device on concrete (like I have) and the back case cracks, battery fly's across the room and a piece flies off that you cannot find again only to have to replace those pieces. After verbalizing my experience (and the experience of countless others using phones with covers that come off) I would actually say the design flaw is on the other foot but I won't as this as I said is subjective based on experiences and what's more important to you. What's more important to me is sturdy design and quality build design. I've dropped mine many many times on hard surfaces like concrete and have never cracked glass or back cover or anything other than scrapes, dents, and nicks... normal wear and tear. So again subjective, not design flaw.

1.a) A design flaw would be like something designed on the phone that prohibits it from doing what it's suppose to do or even let's say making your product on so many different hardware platforms, you cannot guarantee upgrades to new OS's with new features for any particular device. Or because of this hardware 'forking' developers cannot guarantee the quality of their application on every device because they are trying to design an application that has generic enough tweaks and optimizations as to work on most of the said devices. Split platforms would be a real design flaw.



2. Your second point about the network, well... we can see the subjectivity in this and that this is not a real design flaw. You're basically saying GSM phones in america have a design flaw because they are GSM which is not the case. For this matter I could say a design flaw for the Droid would be being CDMA because CDMA is a very antiquated technology/network that is being phased out as quickly as it possibly can. The design flaw would be creating a phone using a network technology that has no support worldwide, no data and voice at the same time, and is not going to be supported several years down the road. Also if you're like me Verizon doesn't work very well for data where I am so again in my 'subjective' opinion Verizon would be the flaw. BUT this isn't a design flaw this is a subjective objection to phone carrier choice.

2.a) A real design flaw would be not creating your SDK in such a way that all applications developed on it, carried the same coherent 'look and feel' of the main OS it's being designed on.

Anyhow we could grasp at straws for days but strengths and weaknesses of both the iPhone and Android(s) are apparent and mainly subjective (unless you're talking about split platforms because this is factually difficult for the developer and you definitely cannot guarantee upgradability).

Don't get me wrong however. I have my hero and I love it... it's fun to use and I enjoy it... I can objectively see both sides of two different ideologies with Google and Apple.

 

[Eugene]

remember though memory (flash) formats like MiroSD are always increasing and getting cheaper. Two years ago I wanted a 4G microsd for my winmo phone and saw one at a radioshack in the mall for $29.99, online they were $25 so I figured that wasn't bad until I went to buy it and they said it was mis marked and the real cost was $69. i went to MicroCenter later and bought one of their unbranded $19.99 ones. Now two years later I can go buy an unbranded 16G for under $50. In a year 32G will be $50 in two years 64G will be $50, I just plan to buy a new one every year. I did the same with my laptop, bought it 6 years ago from dell with a 20G, replaced that with a 60G, replaced that with a 120G, then a 160G, then bought a netbook with a 160G to replace it this year and dropped a 500G drive in that. in a year or two if i don't replace the netbook, I'll probably buy a 1T by then for the same ~$100. With removable memory I can just wait for a good price point and buy bigger. If I was just buying the iphad then I'd have to buy a whole new phone every year, same with Apple's crappy laptops that you can't putt a bigger drive in without voiding the warranty, they use non removeable memory in their phones to force you to buy a new phone.
You can't really compare 160G ipods since they are hdd based, different technology.

I have 5.6G of music on my phone currently, 1093 songs in over 100 albums and thats with three Christmas albums that are only on there for a little bit and a couple others that are meh so I'm going to get rid of them. Even if you listened nonstop thats several days of music, do you really need more than that in one place?

 

[mrthundercleese]

Just to stay factual here, Apple has sold more units than RIM since the latter half of 08.

My apologies. I shouldn't have phrased it that way. I meant to reference this information on market share.

Considering we're talking here about APP storage more than anything else

The OP clearly says...

...What I'm interested in is "total storage" available. If I understand correctly, the total storage available to any Android device so far is 16 GB (largest microSD that I can find for sale), often with a paltry 512 MB built-in, with less than that available to users. 256 MB on the Droid, for example...

However, app storage is really the only real issue (16GB is plenty for whatever media) and I'd think that outside of games (come on man .. Nokia tried the games thing and failed... the DS and PSP do well in this space) by the time apps get big enough to fill our space (256MB since the Droid has set that standard now) the devices will catch up.

Currently, the answer is negative. But the OP (and myself) is concerned about the future. People are signing 18month minimum contracts on these phones and the rapid development of software for them means that many people may well fill up a number of Gb with future applications. Android phones don't currently APPEAR to be very future-proof.

Appearance may be deceiving .

Example - iPhone users ALL get software upgrades to the latest version, don't they? No iPhone user (currently) has to worry about a new app working on his version of the OS. Android users are not going to have this luxury. My son has a Pulse with 1.5 on it, and there doesn't seem to be any indication that it will get 1.6 or 2.0. How long before app developers are writing software that is (a) too large for his internal storage and (b) wouldn't work on 1.5 anyway?

I see that this issue, OS updates and internal storage, WILL hamper the mass take-up of Android phones. Joe Average consumer will look at 256Mb internal storage compared to 16Gb (or even 32Gb) of an alternative and will just see that number, nothing more.

Motorola would say that memory is irrelevant if you put an advertising behemoth behind it.

Yes, eventually the internal memory of these devices will increase. But is it such a problem that I have to read it every place I go? It's like the "camera sucks" posts. Yes the camera sucks. By my standards there is no phone in existence that takes "good" photos.

 

[sooper_droid12]

Wow! Some of you guys are writing novels up there!

The internal memory that phones like the iPhone is using is called NAND memory. This was not a widely accepted type of memory, but as the iPhone gained popularity, so did NAND memory. Subsequently, Apple (and to a lesser extent, Nokia) began investing a lot in NAND memory and buying up as much as they could of it. The benefits of it are higher transfer rates due to integration to the board, but are extremely volatile.

SD Memory has its own benefits, the biggest of which is removability and is slightly more stable than the flash memory. The iPhone only has 256mb of RAM like the DROID, and has various multiples of 8gb NAND flash. The upcoming HTC Android flagship phone is slated to have 400mb+ of RAM, Sense UI will take up about 100mb of that leaving about 300 (not much different than the DROID or iPhone).

Android currently has competitive devices with available storage memory. Remember, the 32GB iPhone is $299 ($100 more than the DROID). Even if you bought another 16gb microSD, it's not setting you back that much. Yeah, iPhone can store apps to all of its flash, but rooted phones are already doing that and I anticipate something that'll allow Android phones to do the same eventually.

 

[markinct]

I've been an android user for over a year, and the pathetic app storage has all ways been my chief complaint (followed closely by the Market).

Many users want rich, good looking apps. Even with the cloud model, rich applications are large. Many users want games with great graphics and sounds... now we're talking very, very large apps. Some of the apps in the Apple App Store are several megabytes. We really don't know what we're NOT getting on Android - it's the dog that doesn't bark...

I believe Google is working on storing Apps on the SD card, based on rumors I've seen in the android-isphere. Once this is addressed, and developers know they have some elbow room that exists across the android ecosystem, we'll see apps that will stun us. As it is, developers really can't count on a significant user base to root their phones and run Apps2SD.

One thing that really drives me nuts... when you start getting that message about running low on storage space your phone stops synching with gmail/calendar/contacts.

 

[Josh0187]

Hmm.

People already bitch and moan about their phones battery not lasting long.

What the hell do you think is going to happen once you throw high res games on there and jack the processor/visual processor up?

But to each his own *shrug*.

Myself? I truly don't give a rats ass, I use my phone to handle my contacts, my calendar, and surfing these forums and work forums when I am bored out of my mind and away from my PC.

Also I like how I can quickly access movie listings and such.

I truly could care less about my music on my phone or high res games *shrug*

But again to each his own.

 

[Benmann71]

Thank you!

Guys, I'm not here to bash on Android. I want it to succeed and I'm a self-admitted Google fanboy. If it had more memory, I'd have one already, and that's why I'm so passionate about this topic. I know other people that feel the same way, so multiply that by the general public and I'm sure there's a good number of us out there. All you have to do is look at the marketplace and you'll see plenty of people are buying PMPs with 64 GB or even 160 GB of space. Those two iPod models are continually in the Amazon top 10 mp3 players. 16 GB is enough?! Who wants to carry around two devices anymore in 2010?

I am want to get an android phone but i am waiting for one that has a good amount of internal memory or one that allows apps2SD right out of the box.

Android phones won't be able to get the the good games that the Iphone has because they can't fit it into 256 Mb.

 

[sooper_droid12]

It doesn't look like any Android phones will have a good amount of internal memory for even the next year (2010). Hopefully, we will see an Apps2SD on the market for non-rooted phones or that Google releases a way to store apps on the SD card. However, I surmise that the slower transfer rates (in the 8-10mb/s) of SD cards is the main reason why apps aren't stored on SD, compared to the 2-3X faster transfer rates that you see with on-board, integrated NAND memory like the iPhone. So, I guess they're also waiting for SD cards that transfer information faster.

 

[osli]

So they're waiting on faster SD transfer rates, and working on an app2sd for non rooted phones ability?

That's the point. They could just put in more internal memory and be done with it. Even 1GB would be a massive improvement.

 

[sooper_droid12]

More what? RAM or flash? They're not the same and don't cost the same.

Like I mentioned earlier, iPhone only comes with 256mb of RAM, but uses it for boot-up purposes. Storage is based on on-board, integrated NAND memory of the 8gb variety. However, Apple essentially has bought up the manufacturing supply of NAND flash memory (the most viable flash memory for smartphones).

That being said, it's still a volatile type of memory. Could they add more RAM? Perhaps, but again, at the expense of increase cost. Could they add some flash memory for storage? Sure, but not enough to go around and again, supply and demand = high cost.

Either way, as it sits, there aren't a lot of games pushing the memory envelope for Android and I don't think it has to do with memory as it is programming in Java. Even so, I'm sure that if there is a situation where a game requires a lot of memory, I'm sure developers can code it to load and store files on the SD card and have the bare minimum running from the system memory. Even at 256mb, I'm not even close to maxing it out.

It's so funny, because I'm giving away my age here, but I remember when computers had just 16mb of ram. Not that that's an excuse for not having more memory on a phone, but... it's weird to be arguing about how 256mb is so little

 

[mrthundercleese]

It's so funny, because I'm giving away my age here, but I remember when computers had just 16mb of ram. Not that that's an excuse for not having more memory on a phone, but... it's weird to be arguing about how 256mb is so little

We are geezers. I remember being wowed at how much disk space I had when I got a 256MB Hard Drive. hahahaha

 

[Benmann71]

So they're waiting on faster SD transfer rates, and working on an app2sd for non rooted phones ability?

That's the point. They could just put in more internal memory and be done with it. Even 1GB would be a massive improvement.

i still don't understand why Apple, Palm, Nokia, & Blackberry (storm & Storm 2) can all have at least one 1GB of memory while android phones have at most 256MB of memory.

 

[osli]

16 mb RAM? 256 mb hd?

My first pc, not counting the colecovision and such, was a real hotrod! 286 8mhz that I overclocked to 12mhz, a full megabyte of RAM, and a whopping 40mb hd (hard drives were pretty uncommon period).

Interestingly, everything about that computer was capable of running more modern software except for the limitations on RAM and storage space.