Microsoft and Nokia are separately working to fix a storage bug in Windows Phone 8 that appears to be eating up the available space on devices. In the meantime, Microsoft is sort-of offering a workaround via a single executive’s account on Twitter, a workaround that most people won’t like.
Users checking their available storage on Windows Phone 8 handsets often report that an increasingly amount of used storage is taken up by the nebulous “Other” category, whose contents are never explained. This is particularly problematic on lower-end devices, which come with limited amounts of storage. And with a new generation of these low-end phones hitting the market now, the complaints are racking up.
Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore has once again taken it upon himself to answer a user’s question about Windows Phone via Twitter, in this case about the storage bug, and he notes that “some improvements [are] coming in future updates, it will get better.”
I don’t know what the deal is with the Windows Phone team right now, but if they’re going to let Belfiore randomly answer questions on Twitter, the least they could do is publish a weekly synopsis via a blog post so the rest of the planet can find out what’s going on too. Just a thought.
Belfiore also offered a workaround: “Try turn[ing] off Skydrive auto-photo upload,” he wrote. That’s a solution most Windows Phone users will not be happy about.
So Microsoft is allegedly doing something at some time to address this bug. But give Nokia some credit for not waiting on the firm to do the right thing: It’s starting to ship a new app called Storage Check with new low-end Lumia handsets, like the Lumia 620, that addresses this problem now. (I have a Lumia 620 but didn’t get this app, presumably because I purchased it early on.)
The Storage Check app includes a Clear button that clear out much of the storage space used by the Other category. This category will still fill up your free storage space over time, of course, but at least the app provides a way to manually fix things.
And Windows Phone team, seriously. Learn how to communicate effectively. This is getting embarrassing.
