[1magine]

8 gigs of device memory is again limited to media and document storage. Looks like only approx. 500 megs can be utilized for apps. Based on the latest screen shots provided in the new Torch video thread, looks like after the OS is fully loaded in, there is about 250 megs of app space left.

I know that CB Kevin and an army of others have been calling for RIM remove the parrtition as app space is far more important than segregated media storage.

I'm dissapointed. There is a saying amongst many that actions speak louder than words. In my opinion, while RIM is now saying they get it, and understand the current marketplace and want to deliver a modern device, and build up BB App world with feature rich applications and Open GL games; their decision to segregate memory - limiting application memory to about 500 megs, says differently.

Now, I've heard from others this was not the case, that the partition was removed. But the only evidence I have seen, says the partition is still up.

I think this is a colossal mistake. What do you think?

[1magine]

http://forums.crackberry.com/attachm...713_234212.jpg

[diegonei]

I think BlackBerry apps are not that big and since we barely have OpenGL apps for the OS7 phones, that should not be a problem.

Not that I don't thing a 8756mb berry wouldn't be sweet...

[1magine]

BB apps are not big because 1. BBs have traditionally been memory deprived and 2. RIM has limited APIs and their reach and 3. OPEN GL 1.0 has only been available on 2-3 devices, which were seriously unederpowered. The 7.0 devices have allot of power and can run opengl es 2.0. A game programmed in Open GL ES 2.0 can be 20-30 megs. As you see from the above screen shot, the Torch 2 has about 200 megs of app space free. I'm sorry, but in my very humble opinion, that is game changer in the wrong direction.

[avt123]

BB apps are not big because 1. BBs have tradittionally been memory deprived and 2. RIM has limited APIs and their reach and 3. OPEN GL 1.0 has only been available on 2-3 devices, which were seriously unsderpowered. The 7.0 devices have allot of power and can run opengl es 2.0. A game programmed in Open GL ES 2.0 can be 20-30 megs. As you see from the above screen shot, the Torch 2 has about 200 megs of app space free. I'm sorry, but in my very humble opinion, that is game changer in the wrong direction.

Agreed. When you are going to start to offer more media rich applications and the availability to have a more powerful gaming experience, more memory is key.

[rollingrock1988]

I guess I don't see the issue here?

[Gucci33]

I guess I don't see the issue here?

Me neither

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[SnoozerBold]

Its not an issue for me personally I don't do much more than message and email with my phone. However, I can see where it will big a big issue for people wanting more feature rich apps and games. Or to sway people from other devices. I hope this isn't true or that RIM changes it.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[1magine]

I guess I don't see the issue here?

Understood. So please allow me to back up a little bit. Platform success over the last 2-3 years has been achieved based largely on 2 factors. Application availability and power/specifications of handsets. Both Apple and Android have benefitted fully from the increased number of smartphone users by providing allot of very feature rich, open APIs, which made development on their platforms relatively easy and growing the number of available applications for those platforms astronomically. At the same time both platforms increased the ability of their handhelds to run these applications and the memory to load allot of applications on the platform, essentially allowing the user to always be 'plugged in' and getting something out of their device.

BB's have been notoriously underpowered, Java somewhat difficult to program for, BB APIs limited in scope and reach. As much as anything else, this has hurt RIM as developers have ignored the platform, and hurt BB users as we were not getting as many applications or as feature rich applications as other platforms.

So when BB OS7 was announced. Many were excited. Allot of new APIs - (magnometer, Open GL ES 2.0, accelerometer, opening up BBM) and new hardware that was 2X as powerful as before. But most of all, there were indications that the memory on BB devices, which has always been reasonable 1Gig, 2 gig, now 8 gig, would be open to application storage. Because although there may have been 1-2 gigs of physical memory on a BB, usually only somewhere from 125-256 megs of memory were available for applications. IE. Storm 1 after OS load had about 40 megs, and Storm 2 after OS has about 100 megs. Like hard drive space, if you build it, they (meaning developers) will fill it.

So by having a mere 200 megs of app space after OS load on OS7 devices, you are sending a message to developers that I believe is negative. I think this limits the amount of applications one will load on their device, and the types of applications that will be developed. For instance, the premeire game on the PlayBook is Need For Speed. It is 300 megs. That game can't fit on the new OS7 devices, but it runs on both IOS and Android.

[centsofreason]

I get it.
-10 char

[dkonigs]

Games like "Need For Speed" on the PlayBook are not really 300MB. In actuality, the binary itself is only 1.7MB. Its the resources that add in 300MB of size to it. And of that, the vast majority are in-game movie clips. There actually is a way to handle large games like this with the current memory model of a BlackBerry. Have the application itself just be the code and basic graphics, and then have it separately download all the media to a spot on the SDCard (or whatever other file-based mass storage is available.)

I think the "partition" is one of those annoying architectural limitations left over from many years ago, and they should have given even more memory to the "application memory" segment. I wish I could explain the situation better, but the only way to do that would be to talk with BlackBerry OS engineers and see hardware/software design documents. (And all that info is most definitely "RIM proprietary and confidential")

[centsofreason]

Games like "Need For Speed" on the PlayBook are not really 300MB. In actuality, the binary itself is only 1.7MB. Its the resources that add in 300MB of size to it. And of that, the vast majority are in-game movie clips. There actually is a way to handle large games like this with the current memory model of a BlackBerry. Have the application itself just be the code and basic graphics, and then have it separately download all the media to a spot on the SDCard (or whatever other file-based mass storage is available.)

I think the "partition" is one of those annoying architectural limitations left over from many years ago, and they should have given even more memory to the "application memory" segment. I wish I could explain the situation better, but the only way to do that would be to talk with BlackBerry OS engineers and see hardware/software design documents. (And all that info is most definitely "RIM proprietary and confidential")

Excuse my ignorance -But can you do that on the BB - split the game up like that and store the media parts on the OS? Is that how games are now?

PS Imagine- congrats on 1,500.

[rollingrock1988]

Understood. So please allow me to back up a little bit. Platform success over the last 2-3 years has been achieved based largely on 2 factors. Application availability and power/specifications of handsets. Both Apple and Android have benefitted fully from the increased number of smartphone users by providing allot of very feature rich, open APIs, which made development on their platforms relatively easy and growing the number of available applications for those platforms astronomically. At the same time both platforms increased the ability of their handhelds to run these applications and the memory to load allot of applications on the platform, essentially allowing the user to always be 'plugged in' and getting something out of their device.

BB's have been notoriously underpowered, Java somewhat difficult to program for, BB APIs limited in scope and reach. As much as anything else, this has hurt RIM as developers have ignored the platform, and hurt BB users as we were not getting as many applications or as feature rich applications as other platforms.

So when BB OS7 was announced. Many were excited. Allot of new APIs - (magnometer, Open GL ES 2.0, accelerometer, opening up BBM) and new hardware that was 2X as powerful as before. But most of all, there were indications that the memory on BB devices, which has always been reasonable 1Gig, 2 gig, now 8 gig, would be open to application storage. Because although there may have been 1-2 gigs of physical memory on a BB, usually only somewhere from 125-256 megs of memory were available for applications. IE. Storm 1 after OS load had about 40 megs, and Storm 2 after OS has about 100 megs. Like hard drive space, if you build it, they (meaning developers) will fill it.

So by having a mere 200 megs of app space after OS load on OS7 devices, you are sending a message to developers that I believe is negative. I think this limits the amount of applications one will load on their device, and the types of applications that will be developed. For instance, the premeire game on the PlayBook is Need For Speed. It is 300 megs. That game can't fit on the new OS7 devices, but it runs on both IOS and Android.

That's understandable, but is it confirmed that final release will be partitioned?

[Bahrutile]

to me it is one of the largest downfalls for a BB device... im still running a 9000... i have 6 apps that i have installed on my phone, pandora, quickpull, facebook, mobipocket e reader, bb app store, and visual v/m- my app memory is less than 20 mbs, this causes issues with the phone, makes it lag, and i have to do battery pulls a lot
i think if people want to be able to add as many apps to their phone as they want/need they should be able to
im sure that games that i have hidden on my device that i cant delete that are added on os upgrades, are a big part of the problem... but if i cant delete pacman, and tetris that you have to pay for to play are just sitting on my device hidden but still taking up space... if there is a way to get rid of those that would be awesome- or just make the whole of the device memory able to use for apps- for media storage i have an sd card

[BBThemes]

ok, so yes the image shows that, (its an old OS but we`ll take it at face value) however isnt it a possibility that the app saves to the 8Gb and runs in the ram, much like a pc app? or they could just be keeping it as it is, or as some have said, it could be partitioned on a later/full release. i think making a statement that it isnt without the final OS being shown and such is a little shortsighted.

[_StephenBB81]

So one thing I failed to see commented here was that people want fast boot times.

And RIM runs a security check on every reboot, the bigger the addressable app memory the slower this boot will be.

RIM needs to release an API that allows an app to install graphic files into the storable media and then access them via the addressable partition.

In addition, I do note that the 9900 apparently has 500MB of free space as reported by app world, but actually has a little over 700MB as reported by the device ( this was mentioned in a 9900 thread)

I would wonder if Matt could chim in as to how much app space he uses with his giant list of apps.

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[dkonigs]

RIM needs to release an API that allows an app to install graphic files into the storable media and then access them via the addressable partition.

File I/O APIs for accessing the mass storage on the device already exist, and have for ages. What I don't think exists, is the ability for an app to download external file content as part of an AppWorld (or OTA, or Desktop Manager) installation. But the app can already be designed to make a separate network connection to download additional content the first time you start it. I actually think some apps already do this, albeit with small amounts of more-frequently-customized data.

[howarmat]

I would wonder if Matt could chim in as to how much app space he uses with his giant list of apps.

actually i still was running with over 50 free still on my storm 2. BUT those programs are still very small, maybe 5 MBs for the biggest app. In reality you should have plenty available space for the current apps out there. There is more potential in the new devices and even though the improvements on OS7 are rather small some of them are big in what it could offer for app development. Just have to see

[_StephenBB81]

I more ment on your current android phone

How much space is taken up by your android apps?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[1magine]

Applications are installed onto the available app space, period. They can save a small backup file to the sdcard, they can save an install file to the devices's media memory, but they can not install into that entire block of media space. 8 gigs of media storage on the device is an absolute waste! The device has an sd card slot.

I don't know if this is a final feature, but it has been on every BB device since the start. But the rewrite of this type of code had to happen at a lower level than the OS, so it is a reasonable guess that this will not change on BB devices. As another poster noted it is likely part of the architecture of the underlying legacy code. Which tells me that despite the hardware advances, RIM is still unable to fully utilize modern hardware with its outdated Java code. After so much time, I had hoped they paid as much attention to fixing the underlying code as they did to the hardware and new features.

[howarmat]

I more ment on your current android phone

How much space is taken up by your android apps?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

1.2 GBs of space are used but i do have some moved to the SD card also. Android allows for the seperation of having some data on the device application memory and allow the bigger portion to be stored on the SD card

here is a list of bigger ones

NFS Shift: 38.89
Uverse: 22.45
Angry Birds: 22.76
Firefox 6: 19.9
adobe air: 16.9
adobe flash: 11.96
Google maps: 11.29
Google+: 10.95
google earth: 8.88
email: 7.66

I could free up probably 100 MBs right there and move to sd card

[_StephenBB81]

Applications are installed onto the available app space, period. They can save a small backup file to the sdcard, they can save an install file to the devices's media memory, but they can not install into that entire block of media space. 8 gigs of media storage on the device is an absolute waste! The device has an sd card slot.

I don't know if this is a final feature, but it has been on every BB device since the start. But the rewrite of this type of code had to happen at a lower level than the OS, so it is a reasonable guess that this will not change on BB devices. As another poster noted it is likely part of the architecture of the underlying legacy code. Which tells me that despite the hardware advances, RIM is still unable to fully utilize modern hardware with its outdated Java code. After so much time, I had hoped they paid as much attention to fixing the underlying code as they did to the hardware and new features.

You have a very matter of fact view on this.

RIM needs to continue to address their strengths while addressing weaknesses, Palms biggest mistake with WebOS was just that.

RIM for reasons we do not know has sandboxed application memory, there must be a reason since it certainly costs more to have seperate app & storage memory when they could JUST use 8GB.


RIM has purchased QNX as we are all aware so these legacy issues are going to the wayside in time

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[howarmat]

im guess security is 1 reason

[1magine]

First thanks for sharing the app list and space Matt.

My OP and Ocomment were w/r/t OS7 devices only. I know QNX is coming. And clearly it will not have this issue. But that is not to say that this is not a current issue with OS7.

I'm not sure this is a security measure. Media and document files have long since been found to house all sorts of malicious code. For a while the IOS exploit was housed in a .pdf I believe. Plenty of tracking software and the like in movie files - as illegal downloaders have found out. All this allowed in that space. I had seen this explained some years ago, but I believe it had to do with the capabilities of the then hardware to address memory. Obviously hardware has jumped by bounds each generation, but the underlying structure has not.

These forums need an on-call RIM engineer to explain it to us in simple terms - like Hawking and quantum physics.

[_StephenBB81]

First thanks for sharing the app list and space Matt.

My OP and Ocomment were w/r/t OS7 devices only. I know QNX is coming. And clearly it will not have this issue. But that is not to say that this is not a current issue with OS7.

I'm not sure this is a security measure. Media and document files have long since been found to house all sorts of malicious code. For a while the IOS exploit was housed in a .pdf I believe. Plenty of tracking software and the like in movie files - as illegal downloaders have found out. All this allowed in that space. I had seen this explained some years ago, but I believe it had to do with the capabilities of the then hardware to address memory. Obviously hardware has jumped by bounds each generation, but the underlying structure has not.

These forums need an on-call RIM engineer to explain it to us in simple terms - like Hawking and quantum physics.

Your point about media holding exploits actually solidifies my reasoning,

RIM doesn't store them in addressable memory space thus removing risks of security being compromised by these attempts.

I'm not saying I wouldn't like more storage, or better solutions for developers.
I'm just saying there is a really big picture that I'm sure is being address with this seemingly ridiculous practice

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