Total Noob to the S5. Would like some help!

[Jonathan Estevez]

Ok so I got my fancy new S5 and my 32GB memory card just came in so I'm in the motions of transfering all my pictures and whatnot. I also got some games that I downloaded online like Dragon Quest XIII and GTA San Andreas. My questions is how do I install that onto my S5? If I were to put it into my memory card what folder should i make and put it in? Also I plan on buying some of the emulators on the Google Play store and want to know where can I store the roms? Lastly if you guys have any sugestions on what apps to download or anything else I should know/do with the new phone let me know. Thanks!

 

[Golfdriver97]

I would leave the apps on the phone itself. The media can be stored just fine on your card, so pictures, music, etc. The emulators usually don't have the games with them, you have to get then off the net separately. Those can go on the card too.

 

[Jonathan Estevez]

What folder do I put my music, pictures and videos in on my SD card? Do I put it under SDcard/ANDROID/MUSIC? (For example)

EDIT:
Also how do I make all my files save on my SD card instead of my internal memory?

 

[CKR83]

Okay, there are some important things you should know about SD card usage. The short of it is, when google released kitkat, it basically turned that nice SD chip you have into just a piece of plastic.

The long of it is more complicated.
Your SD card CAN be used to STORE data -- but you'll find almost no application (other than a precious few that are really kind of crap) that will WRITE to the card. Docs won't work. QuickPic won't work and neither will your music player (although google music MIGHT work, I haven't tried it.)
If you want your games to actually use the SD card, then you'll probably have to install the games ON the card -- otherwise they WILL NOT BE ABLE TO WRITE TO IT and your game won't work.

Whatever directory you store your information in on the external SD card is totally up to you. Call it whatever you want -- it doesn't matter.

You want to be able to store your files on the SD card -- most of us do. You can thank Google for the fact that your options of getting it TO the SD card are very limited. You can use My Files, which DOES work (although it's pretty crappy) and you can use a PC and ( I assume) a Mac direct connection to write to the card. As far as I know, no other method will reliably work. You'll hear people tell you that ES File Explorer (an excellent app) will work. It does for some, it doesn't for most.

The camera app on the phone will write to the SD card, so you can keep your photos there. However, if you do, you'll only have two very inferior apps to edit those pictures -- even the names -- and those are the apps that came with the phone. You can use something like QuickPic to look at the pictures, but all these apps (thanks again, to KitKat) don't work well in that you'll get EVERY SINGLE PICTURE ON YOUR PHONE, and you won't be able to hide any of them. What that means is that EVERY SINGLE COVER you have for any mp3 you have on the phone, will turn up in your search and your gallery will look like crap.

Again, the long and short of it is that if a 3rd party app needs to write to the SD card, it can't -- although many of these apps, if they're stored on the card, can write to their own directory. If you go into the Applications section of System Settings, you'll see that there are apps that you can move to the SD card. I haven't really done that with any of mine, but I suppose I'll have to at some point.

Good apps to get? Guess that depends on the stuff you like to do with your phone. I love Nova Launcher Prime and immediately put it on. 1Weather is pretty awesome too. CPUTemp is probably a good thing to have. Dropbox is now almost useless since it can't write to the SD card, but I still have it. EverNote, OneNote are good apps. So is Dolphin Browser.

Good luck with the new phone. It's a nice machine, but until we can once again root them, it's about as useful as an iPhone.

 

[Cincojoe]

Any idea if this will get better in the new L coming out?

 

[CKR83]

Any idea if this will get better in the new L coming out?

I've heard that some of these issues will be addressed. This article http://www.androidheadlines.com/2014/07/sd-card-access-changes-better-android-l.html seems to have some positive things to say. But what I don't know, is if "L" will ever show up on my brand new, just-bought-last-Sunday AT&T device. AT&T doesn't seem to be big on updating the software on the devices.

 

[shanghaichica]

Okay, there are some important things you should know about SD card usage. The short of it is, when google released kitkat, it basically turned that nice SD chip you have into just a piece of plastic.

The long of it is more complicated.
Your SD card CAN be used to STORE data -- but you'll find almost no application (other than a precious few that are really kind of crap) that will WRITE to the card. Docs won't work. QuickPic won't work and neither will your music player (although google music MIGHT work, I haven't tried it.)
If you want your games to actually use the SD card, then you'll probably have to install the games ON the card -- otherwise they WILL NOT BE ABLE TO WRITE TO IT and your game won't work.

Whatever directory you store your information in on the external SD card is totally up to you. Call it whatever you want -- it doesn't matter.

You want to be able to store your files on the SD card -- most of us do. You can thank Google for the fact that your options of getting it TO the SD card are very limited. You can use My Files, which DOES work (although it's pretty crappy) and you can use a PC and ( I assume) a Mac direct connection to write to the card. As far as I know, no other method will reliably work. You'll hear people tell you that ES File Explorer (an excellent app) will work. It does for some, it doesn't for most.

The camera app on the phone will write to the SD card, so you can keep your photos there. However, if you do, you'll only have two very inferior apps to edit those pictures -- even the names -- and those are the apps that came with the phone. You can use something like QuickPic to look at the pictures, but all these apps (thanks again, to KitKat) don't work well in that you'll get EVERY SINGLE PICTURE ON YOUR PHONE, and you won't be able to hide any of them. What that means is that EVERY SINGLE COVER you have for any mp3 you have on the phone, will turn up in your search and your gallery will look like crap.

Again, the long and short of it is that if a 3rd party app needs to write to the SD card, it can't -- although many of these apps, if they're stored on the card, can write to their own directory. If you go into the Applications section of System Settings, you'll see that there are apps that you can move to the SD card. I haven't really done that with any of mine, but I suppose I'll have to at some point.

Good apps to get? Guess that depends on the stuff you like to do with your phone. I love Nova Launcher Prime and immediately put it on. 1Weather is pretty awesome too. CPUTemp is probably a good thing to have. Dropbox is now almost useless since it can't write to the SD card, but I still have it. EverNote, OneNote are good apps. So is Dolphin Browser.

Good luck with the new phone. It's a nice machine, but until we can once again root them, it's about as useful as an iPhone.

The kit kat update did make the SD Card less useful but I still get plenty of use out of mine. I have all my music stored on there which I can play via my music player of choice, player pro. All my pictures are stored on there and I'm able to edit them using apps like snapseed, zoe beta, instagram etc I also store all of my videos on there. All my files are stored on there which are accessible via the my files app. I don't know if other file mangers can be used as I'm perfectly happy to use the stock app. The only thing that won't store on there are my applications. Although some can be moved to the SD card most of the data stays on the phone. I still find the SD card pretty useful for storing all of my media. Google play movies and TV shows and music bought from Google play can be stored directly onto the card

posted from my galaxy tab pro 10.1

 

[shanghaichica]

What folder do I put my music, pictures and videos in on my SD card? Do I put it under SDcard/ANDROID/MUSIC? (For example)

EDIT:
Also how do I make all my files save on my SD card instead of my internal memory?

Make your own folders, that's what I do and you can name them whatever you like. Do you own a windows PC?

Imagine that your phone is like your computer. I use the default my files app and it allows me to create folders directly on my device. I can also move files around between folders, from the internal memory to the SD card, or even the other way around. You can also connect the phone to the computer and use drag and drop to move things around.

posted from my galaxy tab pro 10.1

 

[CKR83]

The kit kat update did make the SD Card less useful but I still get plenty of use out of mine. I have all my music stored on there which I can play via my music player of choice, player pro. All my pictures are stored on there and I'm able to edit them using apps like snapseed, zoe beta, instagram etc I also store all of my videos on there. All my files are stored on there which are accessible via the my files app. I don't know if other file mangers can be used as I'm perfectly happy to use the stock app. The only thing that won't store on there are my applications. Although some can be moved to the SD card most of the data stays on the phone. I still find the SD card pretty useful for storing all of my media. Google play movies and TV shows and music bought from Google play can be stored directly onto the card

posted from my galaxy tab pro 10.1

I have yet to find a way to make google purchased music be stored on my SD card -- other than the obvious of downloading it on my PC and moving it there myself.

People who only use the SD card for media consumption are not as affected. People who use it to store data that needs to be written to are. As I've stated in other threads, encryption programs no longer work, decent picture managers -- for those of use who do not want our pictures on the cloud -- are out of luck. Even KeePass won't work if you store your file on the SD card. Google Docs doesn't write to the SD card and neither does any other office program.

So yes, if all you do is look at the media on the card, sure, it's fine. If you need to actually do anything with it, then you're out of luck.

 

[shanghaichica]

You can move/store music purchased from the Google play store onto the SD card but it will only play using the play music app. The only way to get it to play using another music player is to download it to the computer and then transfer to the phone, as you described. However this has always been the case, even before the kit kat update. This is why I avoid buying my music from Google play unless they have a special offer on. It's much more straight forward to buy it from the Amazon app, transfer to my SD card and then play it using whatever music player app I want.

As I said though I can edit the photos stored on my SD card unsing a variety of apps. Also as for things like Google drive, even if the app won't save to the SD card files can always be moved across using the my files app.

In the past I've store apps on my SD card but have always primarily used it to store media.

Posted from my S5