USB Mass Storage for Android 4.0....but not for Galaxy Nexus???

Well this sorta sucks. Turns out Android 4.0 does support USB Mass Storage (UMS) but you won't get that on the Galaxy Nexus.

UMS only appears for devices which have external mass storage, so future phones with an SD card option will see UMS support on their devices.

The Galaxy Nexus, however, like the iPhone, uses internal memory. And while the iPhone uses iTunes to manage its system, the Galaxy Nexus doesn't, but instead uses MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) which makes it easy to plug into any windows computer without additional support.

For Mac users, there is no direct support for MTP, instead, there's Android File Transfer, which works somewhat like MTP on Windows.

Transferring with MTP on Windows and AFT on Mac is pretty easy with 2 common problems that arise.

1) You can't do multiple-window transfers. Meaning you can transfer a lot of files, but from one folder at a time, and once it starts transferring, you can't drag and drop another set of files and see another transfer window open....not a huge deal, it's the same case for my Creative Zen player, never really had a problem with it. Users wanting to dump their entire music album into iTunes can simply drag the iTunes library folder into the phone and voila.

2) This problem is more common with AFT than MTP. More confusion than problem. Whenever you uninstall a file off your phone, some times smaller trace files or folders still remain in your phone. This is common among software on different platforms (Mac, Windows etc). Another way to think of it is like the iPhone file explorer...where once you open it, you are bombarded with files that are normally hidden, you'll have to navigate through it. The difference though, is while the iPhone file explorer is more for advanced users, AFT is meant for day to day users. MTP on windows does not have these hidden files show up so that's ok. Mac users using AFT will need to have a bit of common sense and just look for the folder that says "Video" or "Music" and touch nothing else.

These two common problems aren't exactly problems to me, but it certainly is ironic that Android 4.0 would have little support for Mac when a lot of google employers use macs, even during their presentations.

Boring to read but if you'd like to know more, article here: Electronista.