Applications and RAM on the Droid

[richpjr#AC]

I am toying with picking up a Droid and one thing I gathered from the reviews is that applications can only be loaded in RAM and not on the storage card. Why in the world would they build a major, major limitation like that into the phone? I have a Storm with the same limitation, but that is built on an aging, creaky OS. Android is new and should not be limited like that. Why not use all storage, like Apple does with the flash storage on the iPhone? I don't get it. Is this "fixable" in future upgrades, or is it a limit of the OS?

 

[brandonscott]

Once the phone is rooted you can uses Apps2SD. which lets you move em to the SD card.

 

[richpjr#AC]

Being new to the Android world, if you root your phone and something screws up, can you restore to a factory ROM (like you could with a BlackBerry)?

 

[p4tr1ck]

I remember reading that they are going to put out an app say we can do it without getting root access. don't quote me on this because I can't remember the source.

 

[p4tr1ck]

Being new to the Android world, if you root your phone and something screws up, can you restore to a factory ROM (like you could with a BlackBerry)?

yes you can.

 

[richpjr#AC]

That is good to know. It still seems bizarre in this day and age to build that limitation in though.

 

[largeselection]

Well that's good to know! Is RAM really going to be an issue? I've installed a bunch of programs and the largest one so far is like 1.33 MB out of like 256MB available? Quick question though, when I look at the running services tab can anyone explain the free space lingo? I see "Avail: 21MB+62MB in 11, Other: 49MB in 3" what on earth does that mean?

 

[TreyDaPrince]

I'm guessing, to find out how much RAM you have left you have to go to into running apps. But its confusing me. Mine currently says Avail: 15MB + 80MB in 18 Other: 71 MB in 4. Ihave no clue what this means.

 

[richpjr#AC]

I'm sure it's sufficient for a decent amount of programs. Some games can take a huge amount of space for levels and textures.

 

[largeselection]

Hahah Trey, we had the same thought at the same time it seems.

 

[Adiliyo]

I remember reading that they are going to put out an app say we can do it without getting root access. don't quote me on this because I can't remember the source.

i read this too, hopefully it happens soon and the amount of onboard storage becomes a moot point. until then, android apps are small like bb apps, so space for now is not really an issue anyways, you could easily fit a hundred apps on the phone before you ran out of room.

iirc, programs with large amount of ancillary data can load it onto the SD card and pull it from there. a good example is the maps apps that store the maps locally, the app is loaded on the main memory, but the maps are stored on the SD card.

 

[SharonW]

I remember reading that they are going to put out an app say we can do it without getting root access. don't quote me on this because I can't remember the source.

Sorry, I have to quote you. hehe It completes me...well, my post actually and that whole logical progression sorta thang. I've got your source right here:

Google: ?ISO Developers for App2SD? | Android Phone Fans

You know what I got a kick out of? I found a link in another topic here on this site (Apps) and it showed the entire app catalog and one of the popular apps was a metric app that showed how many new apps were being added each month. Holey Moley! I do believe the app catalog is reaching critical mass. Month over month the increases are huge with Oct. showing some 2,600 apps added and over 650 for Nov. to date! At that rate there will be over 20,000 apps by Feb. if not sooner.