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Comment by wissler | Hacker News Reader

Why no microSD?

"Nexus" phones that shipped with 4.0 ICS or later do not have a microSD slot and only use internal storage.

This was a design decision by the Android team, in response to users on the Nexus One (Android 2.x) getting confused about having 2 GB free on their SD card and not being able to install DRMed apps because their 512 MB of internal storage was full.

Because storage fails and most of the tech world is tired of trying to recover your data when it breaks.

In my opinion, the less you store on your phone the better off you will be. I've seen the look on the faces of people who don't backup regularly and using your phone as a USB drive for your life is a "Bad Idea"

That is a presumptuous attitude, completely wrongheaded.

I have a ton of music and that's what I put on the microSD. If I lose it, no big deal, but it's really nice to be able to have all my music there.

Yeah maybe he should join the majority of the tech world that doesn't feel obligated to be everyone and their mother's free tech support.

Personally I'm pretty comfortable taking a quick glance and saying "Looks like it's not working, I don't really know anything about these, you should try the tech support number" without going all nuts or passive aggressive on innocent friends and family.

That is a presumptuous attitude, completely wrongheaded.

Instead of being comfortable feigning ignorance I instead choose to be proactive in educating my friends and family about the dangers of local storage and a haphazard backup schedule.

Don't be rude and assumptive.

This is from one year ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/mg14z/whoa_whoa_ics...

No one wants to put a micro sd card in their phone, they just don't want to pay $100 for another 16GB storage

Because most people don't care.

Because Google really wants you to use their cloud services. Like seriously, even if you have shitty data service in your area.

I think people who want onboard removal storage are in the minority. Not to say its not important (I myself would love a microSD slot on the Nexus 5), I just don't think that many people are not going to buy a phone over it.

Anyway, I'd much prefer simplified file sharing/connectivity between my Android phone and my Macbook Air. I already have all my music, data, etc on the Mac in Dropbox, I just need an easier way for my phone to get to it (adhoc wifi?).

Pretty sure it's more to do with most people likely not ever needing more than 16/32GB over the lifetime of their phone, meaning adding a microSD slot would be simply a waste of time, effort and space.

I hear that comment often when it comes to microsd. I don't think it has anything with google wanting you to use their cloud services. External storage is horrible for the user experience. Where do my photos go when I take them? What about my apps? If you mount external storage to /sdcard, where does internal storage go?

Previously phones would mount the external storage to /sdcard/_external and /sdcard would be the internal storage. It is really crappy and horrible. What happens to my installed apps on external storage when I suddenly yank out the card? What about if I take the microsd card and then delete a bunch of app data on it and put it back in?

Personally I don't want to have a complicated exposed file system on a phone. I don't want to have the option of moving apps between internal and external storage. This sort of stuff is why Android gets a bad reputation.

I've always thought it's to allow price gouging for the 32GB version over the 16.

I was inspired to google for price discrimination, and enjoyed this pharase:

    "consumers are being asked to reveal their degree of price sensitivity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination#Premium_pr...

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