Why move apps to SD when they don't actually go there?

[ScubaCA]

I was under the impression that the point of moving apps to the sd card is when you remove the sd card you can take the app with you along with your preferences, settings, achievement, and progress. Since this is not the case, what prey tell, is the benefit of moving my apps to the sd card when they dont really appear to go to the sd card anyway? The new file structure in Gingerbread for the sd card is SD-ext so when you move an app to the "Media Area," where exactly does it go and what is the point?

 

[Scur]

Because it frees up internal memory, and increases the number of apps you can have, as well as the amount of memory available for internal processing. When you move apps to your sdcard, though, you can't use widgets those apps usually provide, unless you do some a2sd trickery to expand your memory onto your sdcard.

 

[ScubaCA]

Anyone else?

 

[bolski]

What Scur said is the main and probably only reason. You have to remember, when you install an app, it's also shared with the internal memory that is used to load and run apps. The more apps you keep installed into the internal memory, the less memory you will have to run apps. Remember, when an app is installed into the internal memory and it's not running, it's STILL eating up the memory you use to run your applications. Hence forth, you are wasting that memory storing apps.

Here's an excellent example. My previous droid phone was an LG Vortex. It had VERY limited internal memory: 150mb to be exact. Ouch! When I got down to less than 20mb of memory free, I would start having text messages failing to come in because I didn't have enough internal memory. I would have to either remove programs or clean out any old text messages, which was usually 10 messages.

On my Droid X2, I can have well over 50 messages and I still have enough internal memory.

Oh, and your title is a bit misleading because the apps really do go there, at least the main parts of the apps. Data usually doesn't go to the SD card, but it can depend from app to app. But, the main reason for moving to the SD card is not so you can just pop the SD card into another phone and immediately run it. It's as Scur stated.

You still have to download the app and install it and then move it to the SD Card, unless you have Titanium Backup Pro which will allow you to back up the data and the application to an SD card. Then, when you install TB on the new phone and set the settings to restore back to the original location, it will install the data and the application back to where you had them on the previous phone. I use TB Pro a lot when flashing new ROMs so I can get all my apps back to where they are without having to use AP2SD to move them back to the SD card.

 

[Scur]

I'm finding myself depending less and less on TB, and more and more on AppExtractor to reinstall apps on a fresh ROM.

 

[bolski]

I'm finding myself depending less and less on TB, and more and more on AppExtractor to reinstall apps on a fresh ROM.

I'll have to look at that one as well, although I've already paid for TB about 6 months ago.

I didn't see anything where AppExtractor can synch up to Dropbox like TB does. I do that so I always have a spare copy of my backups in case my SD card decides to go on the fritz. Any ideas if it can or will eventually do that? In fact, here's the article that made me decide to synch to DropBox:

http://lifehacker.com/5784857/how-to-set-up-a-fully-automated-app-and-settings-backup-on-android

Also, it appears as if AppExtractor is a good choice for those that do ROM backups, I currently don't do that, but I can see where this would be a great app for that.

Does it allow freezing of apps? I didn't see that in the description anywhere. That's another thing I like about TB is the freezing of apps as well as converting user apps to system apps and vice versa.

Thanks!

 

[VRocks]

I personally recommend, You Should definitely move Apps to SD.

I am using LG Optimus 2x having lots of apps installed and lots of SMS's. This made it dead slow and sometimes it stopped responding.

So I Moved all my games and apps(those who don't create widgets) to SD.

Now the performance has improved a lot.

I hope this helps you too