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Google’s director of Android user services Matias Duarte has branded SD cards “techy nonsense”.
In an attempt to explain why the company’s Nexus devices do not include SD card support, Duarte posted the following on Google+:
Everybody likes the idea of having an SD card, but in reality it’s just confusing for users.
If you’re saving photos, videos or music, where does it go? Is it on your phone? Or on your card? Should there be a setting? Prompt everytime? What happens to the experience when you swap out the card? It’s just too complicated.
We take a different approach. Your Nexus has a fixed amount of space and your apps just seamlessly use it for you without you ever having to worry about files or volumes or any of that techy nonsense left over from the paleolithic era of computing.
With a Nexus you know exactly how much storage you get upfront and you can decide what’s the right size for you. That’s simple and good for users.
While Matias has a point that some may find using SD cards confusing, it seems unusual to remove the option all together. Anyone that has used a number of mobile phones throughout the years will surely be able to figure it out by now? And those using lower end Nexus devices will find themselves looking towards cloud storage as their 8GBs of space gets eaten up. This then begs the question: Won’t those who find SD cards confusing most probably find the concept of ‘the cloud’ a little hard to understand?
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