[WickedRabbit]

Well I just read that over at Anandtech and that's very disappointing. I suppose I'm not too surprised since stock android phones don't support memory cards, but that sort of does make me rethink getting this now over the HTC, which has more internal memory.

You would have to use a third party camera app and a file manager that even then likely still wouldn't work how I wanted.

Any suggestions?

"AnandTech | HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition Review - Nearly Nexus" http://feedly.com/k/14tKrB4

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[JHBThree]

Well I just read that over at Anandtech and that's very disappointing. I suppose I'm not too surprised since stock android phones don't support memory cards, but that sort of does make me rethink getting this now over the HTC, which has more internal memory.

You would have to use a third party camera app and a file manager that even then likely still wouldn't work how I wanted.

Any suggestions?

"AnandTech | HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S 4 Google Play edition Review - Nearly Nexus" http://feedly.com/k/14tKrB4

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

The GE S4 does have almost 2 gigs more storage though, so it may not be as big of an issue.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

[Rally Android]

What about for video though? That takes up a lot more memory. This is disappointing news.

[WickedRabbit]

This is taken from the Official Google Play Store product page:

Use a microSD card (not included) to import photos, music, movies and more. <-- Notice nothing about saving to it.

....and, if that wasn't enough evidence (also from the official page):

MicroSD card only compatible with select third party applications. Not compatible with Google services.

Dunno, 16GB is just not enough for me to use WITH the camera. For apps only sure because I don't use too much, but not with the camera or HD video.

[planoman]

I am disappointed too. You can use a file utility like Astro file to move them from internal memory to the SD card but I wonder why they did not add this? The added the code to make the file cover work with this model because that is not pure vanilla android but left the ability to save directly to the SD card out. Nonsense...

I also would not get the HTC ONE GE until google wallet is confirmed to be working.

[JHBThree]

I am disappointed too. You can use a file utility like Astro file to move them from internal memory to the SD card but I wonder why they did not add this? The added the code to make the file cover work with this model because that is not pure vanilla android but left the ability to save directly to the SD card out. Nonsense...

I also would not get the HTC ONE GE until google wallet is confirmed to be working.

Because in order for saving to SD to work they would have had to rewrite significant portions of the OS and almost all of the built in applications. The limited support the device has for SD was certainly coded by Samsung and is not built into the OS.

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[planoman]

Because in order for saving to SD to work they would have had to rewrite significant portions of the OS and almost all of the built in applications. The limited support the device has for SD was certainly coded by Samsung and is not built into the OS.

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Just for pictures, video and music?

[JHBThree]

Just for pictures, video and music?

Yes. Android does not support micro SD cards.

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[LoganK]

Because in order for saving to SD to work they would have had to rewrite significant portions of the OS and almost all of the built in applications. The limited support the device has for SD was certainly coded by Samsung and is not built into the OS.

This is not true. Android was built with SD cards in mind. Multiple SD cards ... not so much. Still, the groundwork is there, and it's trivial to add support in the applications. Google doesn't add access to the "external" card in its interfaces because their designer thinks people would find it too confusing.

All applications that support the external should be working. I haven't verified that, but there's no reason they shouldn't work.

Android services (which don't have a UI) should support the SD card without issue. The primary one that springs to mind is the MediaScanner which allows you to play music and view pictures located on the "external" card.

[smooth4lyfe]

There is seriously no point of this phone to me at all now

[JHBThree]

This is not true. Android was built with SD cards in mind. Multiple SD cards ... not so much. Still, the groundwork is there, and it's trivial to add support in the applications. Google doesn't add access to the "external" card in its interfaces because their designer thinks people would find it too confusing.

All applications that support the external should be working. I haven't verified that, but there's no reason they shouldn't work.

Android services (which don't have a UI) should support the SD card without issue. The primary one that springs to mind is the MediaScanner which allows you to play music and view pictures located on the "external" card.

Android does not support external sd cards. It hasn't for almost two years. The code is not there.

[esh318]

This is a bit of a bummer, but the SD card will still be useful. I plan on putting all my music and videos on the SD card and using the DoubleTwist app to play them. I have about 30 GB of music, so it wouldn't fit on the built-in memory. In my opinion, DoubleTwist is a better music player than the Google Play Music app anyway.

[graye]

Well, the APIs are still there... the SD Card still a viable option for "Shared External Storage"

[JHBThree]

Well, the APIs are still there... the SD Card still a viable option for "Shared External Storage"

The APIs aren't there.

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[graye]

The APIs aren't there.

So, you're saying that I can't mount/unmount an external SD card in newer versions of Android? And that I can't read/write to that mounted device in newer versions of Android? And, that my applications that specifically target reading/writing to an external SD card will cease to do so in new versions of Android?

Really?

[JHBThree]

So, you're saying that I can't mount/unmount an external SD card in newer versions of Android? And that I can't read/write to that mounted device in newer versions of Android? And, that my applications that specifically target reading/writing to an external SD card will cease to do so in new versions of Android?

Really?

Not in stock android, no. The GE S4 borrows the drivers from the regular S4 to get it to work.

[graye]

Not in stock android, no. The GE S4 borrows the drivers from the regular S4 to get it to work.

OK, so cite your references... show me where context.getExternalStorageState() and context.getExternalFilesDir() have been removed from the API

[maverick96]

Not in stock android, no. The GE S4 borrows the drivers from the regular S4 to get it to work.

So the GE Galaxy S4 will be allow for storing pictures taken with the camera onto SD card? Pretty sure I've seen a review or 2 mention that it cannot.


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[JHBThree]

So the GE Galaxy S4 will be allow for storing pictures taken with the camera onto SD card? Pretty sure I've seen a review or 2 mention that it cannot.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

That's not what I said.

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[JHBThree]

OK, so cite your references... show me where context.getExternalStorageState() and context.getExternalFilesDir() have been removed from the API

Ah my apologies. The APIs are there, all of the hooks in the os are gone though. (Hence the reason the stock camera app can't save to sd )

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[kyoo]

very sad to find this out... already bought an sd card, not a fan of using a third party camera app either.

[rooneyt]

I'm a bit late to the party, but JB+ is almost a complete clone of the stock camera app and works with sd cards.

[SeanNYC76]

Mine will be tomorrow and I could care less if I can't store pics on an SD card! Reason being is that I have a 16GB iphone 5 for my other line with god knows how many apps and roughly 1,300 pics on it and have no issues at all.

Now with my GE S4 I would rather take pics and then download them to Drop Box for cloud storage. Because at the end if the day I highly doubt that my next phone after the S4 will have support for an SD card anyway. It's not like the old days when you switch phones and just about every phone has an SD slot and moving memory around was a breeze. Those days are long gone!

[Xceptiona1]

When I first bought the google s4 everything was fine android 4.2.2 last night 4.3 updated to my phone and now they took away access to SDcards form applications, meaning that even astro cannot copy files to the sdcard...it sees it, it can play/view stuff, but no write support to the sd card from apps (which astro is an app). This sucks, I spend $1400 on two phones after researching so long and now they are both crappy peices of junk because google for no reason decided hey guys lets disable SD a month after we sell these phones! yipee!

I really think they will have to patch this to function like it did in 4.2.2 because most of my apps no longer work.

[planoman]

When I first bought the google s4 everything was fine android 4.2.2 last night 4.3 updated to my phone and now they took away access to SDcards form applications, meaning that even astro cannot copy files to the sdcard...it sees it, it can play/view stuff, but no write support to the sd card from apps (which astro is an app). This sucks, I spend $1400 on two phones after researching so long and now they are both crappy peices of junk because google for no reason decided hey guys lets disable SD a month after we sell these phones! yipee!

I really think they will have to patch this to function like it did in 4.2.2 because most of my apps no longer work.

ES file explorer can still do it. I was using Astro also and loss the ability with the 4.3 update. Also if you are using a camera app that could save pics to SD card before 4.3, email the developer and let them know. I emailed procapture and JB+ camera to let them know that the apps can no longer save pics on SD card in 4.3 on the S4 Google Edition.