Google has explained that Nexus devices only offer fixed storage as the company wants to avoid "techy nonsense left over from the paleolithic era of computing".
Upon answering questions about the Nexus lineup on Google+, Google's director of user services on Android, Matias Duarte, said offering consumers expandable memory through SD cards was apparently too confusing.
"Everybody likes the idea of having an SD card, but in reality it's just confusing for users," he said. "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 every time? What happens to the experience when you swap out the card? It's just too complicated."
Instead of implementing SD card support, Nexus devices offers a fixed amount of space that "apps just seamlessly… use", with users not having to "worry about files or volumes or any of that techy nonsense left over from the paleolithic era of computing".
As for Jelly Bean's transition to consistent system buttons and status bars, Duarte explained that it's due to usability research and muscle memory. "What mattered most of all was muscle memory – keeping buttons where you expect them, no matter how you hold the device," Duarte explained.
Google recently announced the Nexus 4 smartphone (which won't feature LTE support), as well as the Nexus 10 tablet and a 3G 32GB variant of the Nexus 7.
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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tramit Poor excuse, at least give the phones larger standard capacities if you are going to omit the SD card. 16gb should be the base version at the very least.Reply -
pyoverdin Someone contact Matias and tell him to google 'How to use SD cards' and 'techy nonsense'. He might come up if you search the second one.Reply
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blader15sk8 I feel another reason Apple and Google leave out the option is because people buy these cheap class 2 cards off Amazon or Ebay that are barely even class 2 speeds that degrade the overall performance of the device. It's not a very good user experience if the photos stored locally on your phone take a while to load while you scroll through them.Reply -
No Google. It's NOT too confusing. It means my phone is more future-proof, and this is pretty much the only reason I'm not buying any Nexus devices. They're starting to sound like Apple, which is rather disappointing.Reply
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mayankleoboy1 blader15sk8I feel another reason Apple and Google leave out the option is because people buy these cheap class 2 cards off Amazon or Ebay that are barely even class 2 speeds that degrade the overall performance of the device. It's not a very good user experience if the photos stored locally on your phone take a while to load while you scroll through them.Reply
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chuckydb For once, I've got to say:''FU Google, I thought you cousidered us smarter... We ain't so dumb you know.''Reply -
halcyon LOL. Using a class10 32G micro-sd with my 64G Transformer Infinity hasn't proved confusing to me and I'm no genius.Reply