S7 edge moving apps

[coolkenny13]

hey guys. I downloaded a couple of apps on my phone - tinder, tunnel bear, spotify, clash of clans.

Out of which i was able to only move clash of clans to sd card. rest of it isnt happening. i'm i doing something wrong? also why do apps by default not get downloaded to sd card.

lastly stock apps like fb, insta,whatsapp that came with the phone - can't i shift this to the sd card?

 

[ratsttam]

The app has to have code in it to allow it to run from the SD card. Not all apps have this. Also the whole app won't get moved, only a portion of it. The SD card is typically slower, or used as a "removeable" media, so defaulting to installing apps on it would be detrimental to more people than it's worth.

Also, if you download an update to an app, there is a good possibility that it will move the app back to the internal memory during the upgrade, and you'll have to move it back to external.

 

[chanchan05]

And Android does not officially support use of SD cards in that manner as well. It's either media storage or enabled ad adopted storage.

 

[anon(238680)]

And Android does not officially support use of SD cards in that manner as well.

Sorry, but this statement doesn't make a lot of sense. If it wasn't supported then why is the capability to move apps built into the OS and used by programmers?

 

[chanchan05]

Sorry, but this statement doesn't make a lot of sense. If it wasn't supported then why is the capability to move apps built into the OS and used by programmers?

It's Samsung who put it in. Android as programmed by Google is tested in Nexus devices, which do not have an SD card slot to begin with. In the first iteration of Android (From cupcake 2.1 to ICS 4.0) Android supported SD cards for app moving since onboard storage was expensive back then. However Android moved on from that, and removed official support for SD cards. It remained a legacy feature retained by some manufactuters like Samsung on their phone by putting it back in, but officially Android does not support it anymore. You have to understand that Samsung is not Android. It uses Android yes, but they're version of Android is modified, and some features they implement are not necessarily supported officially on Android. MultiWindow is a great example. Samsung just put that feature on top of Android. With Android not actually supporting SD cards in that fashion, many developers don't bother to retain the legacy code to allow moving to SD card.

 

[anon(238680)]

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. Very helpful