Old android phones used to emulate a USB mass storage device when you would connect them. To the computer, the phone would appear as a usb stick. Modern android phones, on the other hand, use a protocol called MTP (Mobile Transfer Protocol), which is completely its own thing.

The reason they switched to MTP is that the old approach gave the computer complete control over the phone's storage; the phone would become completely unusable while connected in this way, and would just display a "connected via usb" splash screen. With MTP, the phone continues to be usable while connected via USB. But it has the downside that MTP is a much less widespread protocol than USB mass storage. On personal computers it should "just work", but on stuff like printers it might not.

Personally, I think they should bring back USB mass storage emulation as an optional feature. Heck, it can still be done, but you need to compile your own android ROM with usb mass storage drivers, which I'm not nearly skilled enough to do.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Old USB implementation used to be a finicky nightmare, though. You make it sound like it wasn't changed for a reason, MTP connectivity on Android as it is now is so much more functional, as well as safer.

In any case, that solves the misunderstanding. I thought you meant you couldn't directly access phone storage anymore, which isn't the case.

The printer scenario seems like an edge case to me. I mean, MTP has been the default for what? Over a decade? If you have a recent printer you're probably fine (also, it probably has wifi and a dedicated mobile app or at least enough third party support to be used from your phone regardless). If your printer is older than that you're probably better served by going through your PC first anyway. Sure, you don't get direct USB access to printing photos, but now we're talking about a very specific feature that was in use for a very specific sliver of time, and it requires you to be tethered to a device anyway. I don't think that's enough to justify legacy storage support on phones.

[–] renzev@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Sure, you don’t get direct USB access to printing photos, but now we’re talking about a very specific feature that was in use for a very specific sliver of time, and it requires you to be tethered to a device anyway. I don’t think that’s enough to justify legacy storage support on phones.

Yeah, fair enough.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago

If you have a recent printer you're probably fine (also, it probably has wifi and a dedicated mobile app or at least enough third party support to be used from your phone regardless).

Not to forget the gazillion security holes. But most of the features stop working after a few years anyway.