New User Here (Ex-iPhone) - Any Help Really Appreciated :)

[mcampellone]

Good morning to this great bunch of people on this forum! I have been reading
many of the posts with great interest, and I am very impressed by how much
knowledge there is in this forum and how supportive everyone is! So, I am hoping
that someone can give me a little direction on this one...

I am an
ex-iphone user (iPhone 4S 64GB), because I have a condition where my vision is
rapidly getting worse and I just can't see the screen very well like I used to.
So, changing to a phone with as HUGE of a screen as I could find was super
important.

At first, I was going to try the Samsung Note - and I went to
the store and played with it a bit. And I was just about ready to get it, when a
friend of mine who knows a really nice reseller in Asia turned me on to his
website.

On his website, I found an awesome 6-inch capacitive screen
Android phone, which LOOKS just like the Samsung note, but only larger - much
larger. The screen is so easy for me to see, and I am thrilled. I paid a little
over $230 for the phone, and I am very surprised by the build quality and the
fit and finish. I was expecting a very cheap horrible phone, but rather it is
quite sturdy and the screen is responsive and rocks. However, I am having some
problems that I hope someone can help with - and it is basically because I am a
total and complete dumbass idiot when it comes to Android, since I was a
brainwashed iOS user since day one LOL.....

So, first here is a little
bit about the phone itself:

Upai N9880
MTK6575, Dual-Core
1.2GHz
Android 4.0.3

I am using Straight Talk unlimited plan in SIM
Slot 1. I left SIM Slot 2 empty.

Also, I inserted a 16GB Micro SD in the
memory card slot.

When I go into Settings, and then Storage, here is what
it says:

"Preferred install location - choices are Internal storage, USB
storage, or Let the system decide", and "Let the system decide" is ticked
on.

Default Write Disk - the choices are USB storage or SD
Card.

Next, it shows Internal Storage total space 503MB, Apps are using
197MB, with 283MB availalbe.

Next section down, it shows USB Storage,
total space 2.00GB, Apps are using 192MB, Pictures & videos are using
46.91MB, and there is 1.76GB available.

Then, in the next section down,
it shows SD Card, Total space 14.83GB, Available 14.74GB.

Then I have
choices to unmount the SD card, or erase the SD card.

**HERE IS THE ISSUE
after telling you all of this. I have installed App2SD Pro, as well as ASTRO
File Manager Pro. What happens, is that apps seem to by default still install in
the phone memory location. When I run App2SD, it shows which apps are movable,
and when I move them it puts them onto that 2GB "USB storage" as they call it. I
can never get anything to install onto the real 16GB SD card. The only way to
get things onto the 16GB SD card is to manually move them (like photos and
stuff) using ASTRO File Manager Pro.

The WEIRD part of this, and this may
be where some of the problem might be - is that in ASTRO File Manager Pro, it
shows the 2GB "USB Storage" as "sdcard", and then it shows my real 16GB SD card
as "sdcard2".

So, as it stands, I can't get App2SD Pro, or even the
phone's own built-in selection, to install the apps to the REAL SD card - and I
am thoroughly confused LOL. In the past, when I had Android devices, I just used
App2SD and it always worked. This is my first Asian phone - and while it is a
very nice huge screen that I can see, this will be a problem for me (as far as
being able to install apps and using up memory rather quickly.

I really
like this phone, but if there is no workaround I suppose I will have to bite the
bullet and go to AT&T and get the Samsung Note and settle for the smaller
screen. My stupid eyes are a huge pain in the A$$.....

ANY insight or
help that anyone can give, I would be very, very appreciative and it would mean
a lot to me, and to my eyesight.

Thanks very much everyone!

Mike

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[UltraDroid]

I'm not a technician, but I believe the issue here is ICS. My understanding is that ICS on your phone prevents you from moving apps to the SD card. Why do you feel the need to move stuff to the SD card at this point?

[CR6]

Your apps will ALWAYS install directly to your internal memory. By using App2SD,.you can move more than one at a time i believe. It looks like you don't have very much internal storage space at all, so moving what you can to the external card would be a wise choice in your case.
You should have no problem moving them to your external sd card. (for some reason the Samsung S3 wasn't designed this way, but you're phone shouldn't have a problem)

Edit: i reread your comment and realized i missed that the apps aren't transferring for you. Have you tried reformatting your sd card? You should be able to do this within the phone itself. Give that a try and let us know how that works.
Good luck!
tap'n

[mcampellone]

I am still looking for a solution for this issue. You are quite right - the
internal storage, which is labeled as "USB Storage", is recognized as the first
SD card. I have made a step by step bunch of screen shots below, to show exactly
what I mean. Also, why I feel that 2GB will not be enough storage for me - I
have a LOT of apps purchased, however I will need more space, and on my last
device installing many of these to the SD card was never a problem. So, here we
go - these screen shots are just to make sure that we are on the same page and
that I explain myself fully.....


This first screen shot is the main screen of my phone after powering on:













This next photos shows that I just pull up the settings menu:













Under "Settings", I select "Storage" as follows:













This next screen shows that the "preferred install location" is the SD Card
and NOT the USB Storage. (The USB Storage is what it calls the built-in 2GB
storage in the phone). It also shows the Internal Storage is 503MB as shown:













Now, when scrolling a bit down, you see that the internal phone storage,
which is 2GB, is called "USB Storage". Why they gave it this name, I will never
know. This is where the apps are moving to whenever I run App2SD Pro......













Scrolling a bit further down, you can see how that 2GB of internal memory,
called "USB Storage", is broken down as 352MB Apps, 99.64MB Pictures and videos,
and leaving 1.54GB available. Then, below that it shows the TRUE physical
external SD card that I have inserted in the card slot, with total space of
29.70GB, with 29.62GB available, as shown:













Here is the very end of scrolling to the bottom of that same screen, just for
reference......













Now, with that out of the way, here is where I go into Apps and I launch App
2 SD Pro as shown:













Here, in App 2 SD's main screen, I will use Adobe Flash as the example app
here. You can also see at the bottom that it is referencing the total INTERNAL
storage, and NOT the secondary "USB" storage...













Here, once I select the "On SD Card" tab, if you look at the bottom, it is
actually referencing the internal "USB" storage, and NOT the SD card...... as
shown.....













Now, to start the example - I will select Adobe Flash from the "Movable Apps"
screen as shown...













You will see that my only choice is to "Move to USB Storage" and NOT to move
to the SD card - that is not even an option....













Once the move is finished, the choice changes to "Move to Internal Storage"
as shown:













You can see now, on the "On SD Card" tab in App 2 SD Pro, Flash is now there,
but the bottom is still referencing the 2GB of internal "USB" storage and not
the SD card.... as shown....













Now, back to my apps, I will launch my ASTRO File Manager Pro as shown:













Here, in the mounted volumes, you will see that it shows "SDCard" and
"SDCard2" rather than "USB Storage" and "SD Card", as shown:













When you go into "SDCard", which is actually the 2GB internal "USB" storage,
you will see all of the folders created, etc. and this is where all of the
installs are going. As shown:













And finally, when you go into SDCard2, which in reality is my large SD Card,
the ONLY folders that were created were Android and LOST.DIR - both of which
were pretty empty. I manually created the rest and moved any pictures, movies,
etc. that I could from the internal storage....













Now, I DID download the SDK tools, installed the USB driver for my phone,
hooked up to the PC via USB in debug mode, and I carried out the "adb shell pm
setInstallLocation 2" command and it took. Even after doing that, this is still
a problem, and has had no effect at all.



I SHOULD be able to install apps to the SD card, otherwise 2GB of storage to
work with, at least for me, is NOT ENOUGH for apps - especially since I use a
LOT of business apps, etc. - - and coming from my iPhone, where I had NO music,
but rather 20GB of apps, I will need the space.



Someone told me to root the phone, convert the two internal partitions and
create a single new partition for Android etc., forcing the system to see the
external as SD Card.... I have one of our techs who is very used to rooting
Android devices coming to help me tomorrow. But, in all honestly I would much
rather not - I would like to keep the phone original, etc. and just get this to
work if possible?



What really pisses me off, is that even in the phone's OWN settings, it
specifically gives the choice to make the default installation location for new
apps EITHER the "USB Storage" location, or the "SD Card" - and STILL it installs
to the internal "USB" storage. I just don't get it.



I have heard this is also very common on a lot of Samsung devices too.



AT ANY RATE - MY QUESTION (YES!! I have a question! LOL) - is, can ANYONE out
there who might have dealt with crap like this before possibly give me any help
or pointers at all? If I can't figure this stupid thing out, I will have to
scrap the whole phone and get another device..... Maybe go back to iPhone. But I
would really like to make this work.



THANK YOU very much ahead of time for any help or advice you can give me - I
really do appreciate it!



Thanks,



Mike