08-07-2013, 07:53 AM
It's an Android OS limitation as of Ice Cream Sandwich. For example, this is how Samsung replied to one customer:
"Thank you for contacting Samsung Customer Support.
I’m sorry you are having issues moving your apps to SD card. I can understand your frustration as it is good fro freeing up memory on the tablet.
Please note that moving or installing apps to external storage is no longer available on any Android from version 4.0 and above, due to how the Android operating system reads storage on our devices.
The Android OS now operates on a unified storage system from Ice Cream Sandwich onward, meaning it will read one data partition for storage, rather than two.
The reason why previous Android versions had the capability of moving apps to external storage was because the phones memory was split into two partitions, one for external storage and one for internal.
Now, with Android using a unified storage system, all applications will be stored completely on the internal memory of the phone. This allows for around 11GB of storage space on a 16GB device for apps. Google, the developer of Android, feels this is more than enough for users, as their operating system was designed for use on their own phones as well, which do not have any external storage at all.
Please also note that we do not advertise any of our devices as having the capability of running or installing apps directly onto the external memory card. You will have to install your apps to the internal memory, but anything else (music, videos, documents etc.) can be stored on your external memory card. "
Google wants the OS to work the same for phones as it does for tablets. They also want to drive users to use their cloud storage. Unless you root your device, the removable SD card is pretty much useless with ICS.
"Thank you for contacting Samsung Customer Support.
I’m sorry you are having issues moving your apps to SD card. I can understand your frustration as it is good fro freeing up memory on the tablet.
Please note that moving or installing apps to external storage is no longer available on any Android from version 4.0 and above, due to how the Android operating system reads storage on our devices.
The Android OS now operates on a unified storage system from Ice Cream Sandwich onward, meaning it will read one data partition for storage, rather than two.
The reason why previous Android versions had the capability of moving apps to external storage was because the phones memory was split into two partitions, one for external storage and one for internal.
Now, with Android using a unified storage system, all applications will be stored completely on the internal memory of the phone. This allows for around 11GB of storage space on a 16GB device for apps. Google, the developer of Android, feels this is more than enough for users, as their operating system was designed for use on their own phones as well, which do not have any external storage at all.
Please also note that we do not advertise any of our devices as having the capability of running or installing apps directly onto the external memory card. You will have to install your apps to the internal memory, but anything else (music, videos, documents etc.) can be stored on your external memory card. "
Google wants the OS to work the same for phones as it does for tablets. They also want to drive users to use their cloud storage. Unless you root your device, the removable SD card is pretty much useless with ICS.