So a quick update on some random research that might interest some of you.
Our friends over at XDA have tried to tackle this issue for Mac and Windows
and one of them made a 2-part apphttp://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1626713(.apk and Mac/Windows helper). The software is in VERY BETA stages, but
does not need root.
So I tested it, and while the connection opens, it relies on FTP, and
despite my best efforts 1) ODK Briefcase still doesn't recognize the
partition (to be expected, it's mounted via FTP and not a proper SD card)
and 2) more disappointing, Windows cannot map the "network location" as a
drive with a letter (that would hopefully have made it possible for ODK
Briefcase to work)
So no luck on that front.
ยทยทยท
On Friday, September 7, 2012 8:37:40 PM UTC-4, Alex Monnard wrote:
>
> I'm facing a very vexing issue and I have been unable, despite my best
> attempts, to get around it.
>
> We are planning to use Asus Nexus 7 tablets for our data collection in
> Liberia in the coming few months. These devices are great as they: 1)are
> relatively cheap and well-built, 2) have a great, easy to read screen even
> in some sunlight, which is made especially useful by the newly implemented
> feature of having several survey questions on the same screen in ODK
> Collect 1.2, and 3) have a long battery life (>10h) and are reasonably fast.
>
> So far, they have performed admirably well with the ODK ecosystem (running
> both ODK Collect and Kobo Collect with no issues or crashes, syncing to ODK
> Aggregate with no issue, etc.) despite running a brand-new version of
> Android. Or so it was, until today...
>
> I began testing ODK Briefcase, and realized that, because all Android 3.x
> and 4.x (Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich/Jelly bean) devices have switch
> away from mass-storage class (MSC) transfer protocol to Media Transfer
> Protocol (MTP) connection when plugged into a host computer using USB, ODK
> Briefcase will not recognize the memory card when selecting "Pull" and then
> "Mounted SD Card".
>
> The device shows up as a media player though the memory card content is
> still present and accessible via normal Windows navigation, and does not
> have a drive letter (as do all MTP devices, unfortunately). I have so far
> been unable to find a walk-around (tried the usual: enabling/disabling USB
> debugging mode, installing the Asus ADB drivers, etc.) to no avail.
>
> My understanding is that MTP is read-only from the host computer's point
> of view. Since no writing on the memory card has to be done for ODK
> Briefcase to work, it should be possible to get it working. Does anybody
> have a suggestion? I'm guessing that ODK will have to be modified sooner or
> later to accommodate MTP since it has become the standard for recent
> Android devices.
>
> Thank you very much for any help and I look forward to hearing from you
> all!
>
> Alex
>
>