Storage available for applications

[maliusmaximus]

Hi all,
I have an Sii gt-i9100g running ICS 4.03 (non-rooted).
Recently I've been getting an error when applications try to update: "Application cannot be installed in the default install location".
So I checked my phone storage.
phone memory: 1.97Gb
Applications: 647mb
Free: 247mb

USB storage has about 10.5Gb available.
I uninstalled a few applications I didn't need on a regular basis and then the phone was able to update the installed applications successfully.
I went in to application management and there's no option to move the installed applications to USB storage (I don't have an external SD card)

So this raises a few concerns:
1: How come there's a mystery 1.1 gigabytes that isn't accounted for in the phone storage? I thought all of Android ICS was stored in that missing 4GB of USB storage memory...
2: If the phone doesn't allow further installations to phone memory when there's only about 200mb available, and if the phone has reserved 1.1 gigabytes for some hidden purpose, then is it true that without buying an SD card, we only really have about 700MB available for applications?!
3: Why isn't the option to move applications to USB storage available under ICS? I believe this was available in Gingerbread.

Anyway I could be wrong with all of this, I'm new to the SII, but if its the case that this supposedly 16GB device only truly has 700MB available for apps without an External SD card, then I'm gonna be pretty angry.

[greenman]

Don't know why you are getting those readings:
For comparison under 'Storage' my S2 shows:

Internal storage
Total space: 1.97GB
Apps: 657MB
Available: 1.19GB

What I think is more likely is that after updating to ICS you didn't carry out a factory reset and clear cache from Recovery Mode.
Regarding moving Apps to the sd card, then in Settings > Applications the option has always been to send to the sd card (by which it means external), but only if the application developer built in this option. This can be automatic or manual.

[RobGS2]

Regarding moving Apps to the sd card, then in Settings > Applications the option has always been to send to the sd card (by which it means external), but only if the application developer built in this option. This can be automatic or manual.

According to my phone it's the internal sd, because according to my app readout I have used 10GB and have 1.5GB available, where as my external sd capacity is 16GB.

I'm not trying to criticize you here greenman, I'm just trying to get my head round the memory thing I've been trying to move my games to my external sd, but can't seem to find a way ? It's just a bit confusing when the phone shows it has an 11.5GB sd card when there isn't actually a card as such

If anyone has the answer to this, then your input would be greatly appreciated.

[RichH]

Someone else had this problem and my advice, which worked for them, was to connect phone to PC and copy everything off the internal SD to a directory on the PC, then reformat the internal SD on the phone and copy everything back to phone.