android - Why would I ever NOT use BitmapFactory's inPurgeable option?

Question

Android's BitmapFactory.Options.inPurgeable has been recommended in various places as a way to avoid OutOfMemory exceptions in Android 2.x and earlier (Android 3.1 fixes this).

If inPurgeable is so great, why would I ever NOT want to use it? The documentation seems very light on details about what this option is doing:

If this is set to true, then the resulting bitmap will allocate its pixels such that they can be purged if the system needs to reclaim memory. In that instance, when the pixels need to be accessed again (e.g. the bitmap is drawn, getPixels() is called), they will be automatically re-decoded

Seems great. What's the catch?

Answer 1

The documentation has subsequently been updated with additional information which addresses your original question.

Summary: use of this flag is no longer recommended.