Android 5.0 Makes SD Cards Great Again

An anonymous reader writes: Over the past couple of years, Google has implemented some changes to how Android handles SD cards that aren't very beneficial to users or developers. After listening to many rounds of complaints, this seems to have changed in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Google's Jeff Sharkey wrote, "[I]n Lollipop we added the new ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT_TREE intent. Apps can launch this intent to pick and return a directory from any supported DocumentProvider, including any of the shared storage supported by the device. Apps can then create, update, and delete files and directories anywhere under the picked tree without any additional user interaction. Just like the other document intents, apps can persist this access across reboots." Android Police adds, "All put together, this should be enough to alleviate most of the stress related to SD cards after the release of KitKat. Power users will no longer have to deal with crippled file managers, media apps will have convenient access to everything they should regardless of storage location, and developers won't have to rely on messy hacks to work around the restrictions."

Comments

Re:Too little too late

[Overzeetop]

So because Android is less open than it originally was, you switched to the most closed platform available for phones? That's like being so pissed they dropped the speed limit on the highway from 65 to 55 to swore you'd drive on 35MPH surface streets from now on.

That's as bad as the guy who recently wrote that after 20 years as a loyal customer of CVS, having never once in those years used NFC payments until two weeks ago when ApplePay was turned on, is now boycotting CVS because they stopped taking NFC payments.