Nice idea to use that Downloads app to know what you downloaded – except for the detail that it does not work that way all the time. It ought to, but it doesn't.
In reality, most of the time when you *try* to grab a file to download it with a DROID, you can get all sorts of odd behavior. Unless a file is an application, there is a real chance that the Downloads application knows nothing about the file (depending which program grabbed the file).
This is yet another "oops" of the DROID OS.are honestly time that I wish there was a better phone/tablet OS choice out there, but at the moment NOBODY seems to want to make a phone/phablet/tablet OS that uses the very same simple file and networking methods that people rely on for everything else (in all other operating systems). Much of the necessary code already exists in various open source versions of *nix.
This sort of problem is VERY odd when you look at how OTHER computing devices work. Even the Raspberry PI does a better job of coping with networking & drive storage issues. Our old PVR (which uses busybox on theside) has a few issues, but none of them are related to the file system or networking.
The Android (and for that matter the various Apple iOS devices) seem to an odd nich. They use all sorts of types of storage - from micro SD cards & external USB drives, to wireless SAMBA shares. Yet BOTH of these operating systems seem to have pieces that are missing the mark - mostly on access to 'user help' (the Droid has no user help, despite being 'online' of the time) ... and also on not quite having a full implementation of the networking.
We have home and corporate networks that run many different (cooperating) operating systems, and can manage to handle TCP/IP properly, talk to each others drives, and find and use Windows shares, SAMBA shares (and others too). But when it comes to phones and tablets ... devices that a lot of businesses use (or try to use)in their enterprise networks - there doesn't seem a lot of effort being put into getting the things to cooperate with normal networking. Many of these devices seem to have operating systems that were made by people who never learned to “work and play well with others”.
Unfortunately none of the tablet/phablet/phone producers are willing to do even make a system that lets you change the HOSTNAME in a reliable manner.
And even more frustrating in day use - they do not seem to want to admit that "Storage is Storage" - no matter where or what kind... and if it isn't protected you ought to be able to use it for what YOU choose to use it for.
Meanwhile people are stuck downloading their files into the ONE spot their phone/tablet will ALLOW them to download files into - and then they have to move them in a second step (to where they want the files to be).
For instance (regarding downloads), I have at least 5 ebook readers, and not one of them leaves behind any listing in the Download app when I go get a book using that eBook READER (or let me choose where I want to download an eBook to. I also have 4 browsers and none of them let me CHOOSE where I want a 'browser' downloaded file to be saved. If one of them DOES let me us “ES File Explorer” (or equivalent) to choose a place to store the file I am grabbing off of the web, about 75% of the time … if I pick my external Micro SD card, ...the damned thing insists I do not have the rights to save a file in that location (which is bull, since I can move the file AFTER the Droid downloads it).
Not ONE of my ebook readers will let me chose where I want to save a file, when I use the reader program to grab another book off of the web.
To be able to do a thing like *THAT* I would need to to buy a few special apps. At the very least OI will need one of the apps that lets your Droid mount EVERYTHING that is connected to it (physically or by network) …. you know... the NORMAL way to do things) … and without “rooting my phone”
If you were familiar with Australian slang, you would have another layer of meaning here. A layer that would lend humor (and obscenity) to the idea that “rooting your phone” is a necessary step in getting the OS to do what it OUGHT to do “straight out of the box”. Especially since it seems more (to me) like it is the PHONE that is doing the “rooting”.
Not ONE of my various applications which download (ebook readers, web browsers, etc) will let me choose where I want a file to be saved (the single most basic element of downloading a file, is where you want to put it). Most applications insist on saving files to the (vastly overcrowded) internal SD card …
… and the OS designers INSIST on having things behave this way (and on a device which is almost ALWAYS networked to a lot of storage ...quite often many terabytes of drive space, sitting there available via SAMBA. But the droid won't touch it.
Then again what should we expect?
There are a lot of outright nutty things about the DROID.
There is certainly no sane reason WHY there isn't a normal “property sheet” that lets you change the HOSTNAME on a DROID (or an iOS tablet/phone).
There is no good reason for not having some form of enterprise management for the things either (considering how tiny NOVELL was in the old 286 era).
Yet here we are after years of complaints (and tons of written descriptions of what various businesses NEED and WHY – sent off to Google management for many exasperated sysAdmins (or to the ANDROID OS TEAM)... all of them direct communications from businesses that WANT to use Droid tablets & Droid phones as a part of their corporate I.T. Infrastructure … but who CAN'T because the networking is half-assed (and these are people will to $PAY$, so us normal users are out of luck).
Yup... despite a willingness to PAY THROUGH THE NOSE, the worlds businesses are stuck with HOSTNAMEs that can;t be reliably changed (from what I understand it is the same with iOS) and as a result – one of the BEST possible developments for the wireless office, is not happening... and everybody is stuck with hostnames that looks like ;
“android-27ab51f8c4c7675b“
and which you CANNOT PING by that name (only by its IP address)....and you can't even dependably change the HOSTNAME even if the phone is ROOTED.
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