T-Mobile G1 Short on Application Memory?

Most of the major smartphone platforms (i.e. Windows Mobile, Symbian & the Palm OS) allow you to run applications off of a memory card. That way you don’t have to take up all your device’s internal memory to store and run the myriad of apps many of people use. Not the case with the first of the so-called gPhones, the T-Mobile G1.

Turn out, with the G1, you cannot store third-party software on memory cards, reports Brighthand. That means you’re stuck with the relatively paltry 70MB of internal memory the G1 offers to run all your apps off of—this for a smartphone that bundles a 1GB expansion card in the box and supports card sizes up to 16 gigs in size.

All you can use the extra memory for, it appears, is storing files, such as documents, web pages, video, music etc. Okay, you can probably store apps on a memory card, but what’s the point if you have to transfer them to internal memory every time you want to run one?

Because the G1, as a gPhone, is being touted as a smartphone that’s very much third-party application friendly, I expect this memory situation will change pretty quickly. After all, there are already three software stores, including Google’s own Android Market, ready to fufill G1 user’s software needs. It’ll be hard for them to succeed without space on the device itself to run them all without hassle.

In related news, expect the G1 to get a virtual keyboard in the next few months. That’ll make it easier for folks to shoot off short SMS messages, as they won’t need to open the device up and slide out the hardware-based typer every time they want to enter text.

This article was first published on SmartPhoneToday.com.