WP7 will render microSD cards useless on other devices
tomsguide.com
tomsguide.com
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/microSD-ATT-Windows-Phone-7-Focu...
That said, even with its warts, WP7 is surprisingly elegant. I've spent quite a bit of time with various WP7 devices and I'm very impressed: 1) It's a good UI experience, and 2) What?! Microsoft designed this?!
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
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.
"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.
There are WP7 devs that are poking at this problem as well: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=9247202
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.
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.
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)
Why would anyone consider implementing it this way is beyond me.
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.
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.
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).
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)
More info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2450831
[Yes, yes, removing the SIM while in operation won't hose the typical phone's OS, yada-yada-yada.]
http://www.gadgetvenue.com/dell-venue-pro-wp7-microsd-card-s...
I have mixed feelings about DRM. As a developer I like the protections it offers, but as a user I try to avoid it when I can. I'll freely admit it's not a consistent stance. Color me hypocritical.
I don't own an Xbox. And it's different - I don't create content with a game console. I don't even read e-mail on one. I most certainly don't write on one.
A phone is a different beast, much closer to the "general-purposeness" of a computer. On my phone, I browse the web, write e-mail, take pictures and transfer them to various different services. I keep music on it and subscribe and listen to podcasts the phone downloads directly.
It bothers me to see such a device locked down with DRM.
I too write software for a living, but I don't sell software for phones. If I had to, I would probably aim for a low price and treat pirates as a form of promotion.
Other approaches would limit the utility of the SD card (in the phone) and needlessly expose to users the difference between "flash" and "SD" storage. This is awkward and counterintuitive for users, who will wonder why they can't install more than x GB of apps on their phone sold with x + y GB of storage (where x is flash and y is SD). Such is the current state of Android.
I'll stop here, but basically, in this case none of the activities you mentioned are hindered (all can be accessed via USB). The DRM simply helps ensure that all storage on the phone can be treated equally as trusted. It allows the OS to assume all storage is the same, and enables it to use all the storage on the phone for all purposes.
Luckily, there are many options in the market, and users can vote with their money :)
https://twitter.com/#!/joshuatopolsky/status/418339383096115...
It chills your heart, doesn't it?
As an Android user and developer, I appreciate why Microsoft did this. With Android the SD is treated entirely as a free-for-all, untrusted grab-bag. There are no ACLs enforced on the SD storage.
Android 2.2 finally added the ability to move installed apps to the SD, but only those apps that essentially give up any pretenses of security (meaning extremely few).
In an ideal world if I added a 32GB SD to an 8GB Android device, I would have 40GB of first class storage. In the real world it is nothing of the sort, and instead you have 8GB of first-class storage, and 32GB of steerage.
Steerage: n. A computer storage pool with more limited characteristics than the device's primary storage, commonly with inferior throughput performance and an inability to store a boot partition or executable software.
This is not perfect copy protection (nothing is), but it protects apps against tampering by other apps. But it also means any files outside of the APK cannot be moved completely to the SD card; those files remain in internal storage. This is why apps with native libraries (like Opera Mobile and Google Earth) still take up so much internal storage even when moved to SD.
[The "apps2sd" feature found in some unofficial pre-2.2 ROMs like Cyanogenmod does not provide the same security features. Your criticism is accurate in those cases.]
With that said, MS probably needs to fix this issue at the OS level (and new HW needs to not expose the SD card). Give users the ability to "eject" SD cards, and make them usable in other devices (although of course losing all data).