I read an interesting post over on Engadget Mobile today about how Google has a plan to overcome Android’s 256 MB application storage limit.  BlackBerry users are all too familiar with having virtually unlimited storage for media on removable micro SD cards but very little memory, 128 MB or less on most BlackBerry devices, to actually store and run applications from.

The issue isn’t quite as dire for Android users as it is for BlackBerry users.  Only core application files need to reside within internal memory in Android.  The BlackBerry, however, requires that entire applications be installed to internal memory.

Why does all this matter?

One of the big complaints about the BlackBerry, especially when compared to the iPhone, Android, and WebOS devices, is that applications don’t seem as feature rich or look as pretty as they do on other devices.  This is because the more features you include in an application, the bigger the application gets.  The more graphics, audio, and textures you add to an application, the bigger the application gets.  There are some iPhone apps (games) that are bigger by themselves than the available application memory used for all applications in most BlackBerry devices.

What is RIM going to do about it?

Android, relatively speaking, has only be out a short while, and, even though the app storage limit issue is more of a nuisance than a showstopper, Google has a plan to resolve it.  BlackBerry devices have had issues with too little application memory since the time that the first BlackBerry devices with color displays came out. It is a complete showstopper as far as creating big feature rich applications and one can only hope that this is something that RIM is working on.