> I feel like removable SD card is a tech person solution but...

As an older person, I find this observation very interesting.

Today, I would consider people in general to be much more technically knowledgeable compared to people 20+ years ago. And yet, 20 years ago, removable storage was quite common, and probably expected of most devices.

Do not confuse the ability to use a phone or laptop with technical knowledge. People know how to use apps, but all the technical stuff is abstracted away.

I'm pretty technical (As is nearly everyone on HN), and I have no idea where my photos are stored on my Android's file system. I have no idea where the APKs are for all my installed apps, or where their saved data sits.

I was surprised the other day that my photos weren't being stored locally on my iphone, but in the cloud. I finally found a setting that turned that "feature" off. Obviously, it had defaulted to "on".

Photos are typically in /DCIM/Camera

If everything is on the SD card (as in: it won't work w/o the card inserted), then it will have to come with a card pre-installed. In that case, the average user won't even realize there's a removable card. It's turtles all the way down.

The card could come separately from the phone in the same box. Phone boots up off the OS on internal storage, and the intro wizard says "Now insert your SD card, which is where your personal data will be stored." Done.

Well, all the user data, like pictures could be placed on the sd by default.

But if the phone doesn't come with a card pre-installed, people are going to complain that it doesn't work, or that they didn't know they had to purchase a card.

Unless it comes with a card, but the card is not inserted, so the user has to do it before booting up the phone

Or, provide a simple and clear way, to move all the user data to the card, first time it is inserted.

Assuming the phone didn't come factory configured to helpfully backup your photos to the cloud, or that you disabled that setting if it did.

> Today, I would consider people in general to be much more technically knowledgeable compared to people 20+ years ago

Very few people know how apps actually store files on a mobile device and as people increasingly use phones / tablets instead of PCs their knowledge of PC file systems reduces. So for many people, copying photos from a phone (or cloud backup) to a computer could be quite a challenge.

Sounds like a design issue, no? If Apple implemented it, they'd call the feature "Secure Liferaft" or something equally silly, but I have no doubt in my mind that they could engineer a proper solution for it. Today's users go out of their way to hide files and folders, so why not give them a chance to do so the right way? The technology is there, all you need is a little marketing pizzazz and a 30 second ad spot with Billie Eilish in the background.

In fact, Google already implemented a way to hide files: it's called "secure folder" in Files and "locked folder" in Photos.

BTW IDK why there are two names for the same concept

The majority of young people I know (in Brazil) doesn't know the concept of "file". So adding/keeping files in SD Cards is a task that requires some explanation.

Disclaimer: I'm also an older person.

It is an easy concept that was trivial for 10 year olds to learn a few years ago. Abstracting it away had a real cost in my opinion.

You can be older and a tech person, I'm older ;)

People are more capable but security like this needs to just be a part of the usual workflow or problems will continue to occur.

Moving files around on a device, extra steps, just doesn't work for the masses.

I'm young-ish, but my general observation has been that my peers forget it was our grandparents and great grandparents that invented computers in the first place.

Admittedly, the technological world is nearly impossible to avoid exposure to these days, where it was entirely optional (or downright prohibitive) to be involved with in the past.

So in general, thank you older people for creating them, I have a lot of fun with them.

I wouldn't say that.

I had an 11 year old ask me what "right-click" was the other day. Yes, it sounds insane and it absolutely is. I blame the public school system.

They know only what they're exposed to, and no more.

Most devices don't have SD cards these days.

Well, first of all it's not my kid. Second of all, I did. That's why I was asked what right-click was.

> I feel like removable SD card is a tech person solution but ... kinda doesn't solve it for a lot of folks.

What's so tech about removing a physical piece that has data? It's an action pretty much everyone can understand intuitively - "this is where your pictures are, if you remove it they stay yours".

“What's so tech about removing a physical piece that has data”

You know that 90% of the world doesn’t know what the word “data” means, right? (Including local variants)

This is something people can understand.

But even I struggled at times to get those pictures then onto a given pc.

I know what a filesystem and a driver is, so I can make it work, if something is missing. A layperson usually cannot.

Partly on purpose, one might say. They are supposed to stay in their walled gardens, where you transfer everything over the approved cloud way and can be thankful, if their data is accepted in another garden.

I've seen Android now has Safe Folder with extra pin (haven't looked too deep).

But (short) pin probably isn't enough, because that means the key is still on the phone.. I'd want an extra password.

The technical problem is that you would need files to be encrypted in case the phone gets stolen. Security mechanism like a pin obviously don't help if someone can just pull the card with the interesting data. Still, even the "worst" users are able to understand the concept.