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They make is so easy to login to the phone -- I'm still waiting for the ability to add multiple users. When I hand my phone to my daughter she should see her ap
by zaroth 9y ago
They make is so easy to login to the phone -- I'm still waiting for the ability to add multiple users. When I hand my phone to my daughter she should see her apps, my son, his. And when I hand my phone to my wife, she should unlock it and see.... her phone. If 256GB local storage and 11ac WiFi isn't enough storage and bandwidth to make this easy, I would be OK if it only kept the last GB of the camera roll.
Of course this sync should happen directly between our devices when they are on the same network. No need to go through the cloud.
By default if her phone rings it should only alert on her primary device. Unless she authenticates to my device at which point everything is there waiting. If her phone was ringing and she picks up my device and authenticates it should answer the call.
Ideally this is all smooth enough that we have matching devices and don't care which one either of us walks out of the house with.
The end game is that when networks are fast enough, the cloud mature enough, and homomorphic encryption performant, we get to the point where the phone basically lives in the cloud and anyone can pick up any iDevice, authenticate, and be looking at effectively their own device.
- lojack 9y agoWhat does my twin brother see when I hand him my phone?
- zaroth 9y agoEven identical twins might not have facial features (due to body fat percentage differences or sun exposure) which are close enough to fool it. It's an interesting question how exactly the device switches to the remote profile mode versus an "authentication failed" route. If the profile has never existed on the device you'll need permission from someone who is live on the device (in other words you need to get past the lock screen) to retrieve a new profile. But if two profiles are live on a device owned by identical twins who can't be distinguished by FaceID -- perhaps detected by trying to authenticate the human to both profiles and seeing if both pass -- you're going to need a PIN (or something else) to distinguish them.
- rburhum 9y agoHonestly, I am waiting to see how FaceID works for various use cases. Just me, without a twin, change beards all the time (shave it, grow it, shape it, etc). I have also have friends who do contact sports (brazilian juijitsu) and trust me, their ears change shape all the time. I dont have any personal friends that box, but man, I can also see that not working so well.
- danielharrison 9y agoHe doesn't. You turn the feature off.
- ehsankia 9y agoWell since it doesn't have touchid, you're pretty much back to using a pin/password, so back 5+ years ago
- rodorgas 9y agoApple said in presentation you can't use FacialID if you have a (evil) twin.
- zaroth 9y agoI mean, just to expand on this.... there's no explicit sync, and no explicit backup. It's always synced. It's always backed up. Imagine you walk into an Apple Store and pick up the latest iPhone XV. And there you are looking at your phone, your contacts, your apps, everything. Underneath, it's a virtual shim. In the first instant it's merely grabbing thumbnails of all your apps and notification metadata so it can "look right". As you click in, scroll around, you polyfill data as you need it. Obviously in some cases a more substantial download would be needed, so you may not be able to pop into an AR game with 1GB of assets within the first 10 seconds of picking up the device, but if your primary is on the LAN you could bring the necessary data locally in ~5 seconds from tapping the icon. Underneath it's doing something analogous to "docker run" on that apps image. In some cases this would lock the image from running concurrently on another device, in other cases multi-master could be fully supported with live sync of the backing stream, e.g. for Apple Mail.
- sanbor 9y agoBu you would have 1:1000000 chances to get into someone elses phone. With 7 billion people in the world it's not so crazy.
- zaroth 9y agoFirst time auth on new hardware would certainly ask for at least a PIN but more likely your iCloud password. For the encryption keys to transfer I think you would also have to allow the request from some other device which currently held them. The Secure Element would need to be upgraded to support "multi-tenancy". That's all assuming the feature works by building on the existing infrastructure. Ideally between your face and your iCloud password you could bring your "profile" to new hardware without having to touch an existing device. After the first time, just your face is enough.
- rodorgas 9y agoA four-digits pin code has 1:10000 chances to get into someone else's phone (on first try).
- thinkythought 9y agoThe wild thing is, apple kind of already did this with handoff, and the iOS/OSX syncing. If my phone is ringing in the kitchen, and i have my laptop with me on the couch i'll get an alert and i can answer the call on my laptop. Or iPad. It doesn't even need to be near the phone, as long as they both have wifi or LTE connected. And while ipads don't do multiple users, on OSX if my roommate or someone else signed in then their calls and messages would come through too. When configged right, even texting to/from real numbers works. They obviously already have this tech most of the way there and just... haven't implemented it?
- zaroth 9y agoI have to believe it's where they are heading, I just really thought we would be there by now!
- chipotle_coyote 9y agoI think it still requires faster, more ubiquitous networking. But in general, I think you're correct. This is also probably the long-term solution to how to make iOS a full general-purpose computing device, which to date is somewhat at odds with the "app console" philosophy of iOS's restrictions and the App Store. If I can run anything I want in the cloud with minimal latency, the restrictions on the phone just don't matter as much.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoWith the family tablet yes, my phone hell no!
- zaroth 9y agoWhat exactly is "your phone"? Is it that physical mass of circuits and lithium ions in your hand? Or is it the bits making up the user-land data you've accumulated on it over time? "Do you think that's air you're breathing?" ;-) What I dislike most is handing someone "my phone" for them to use for a minute and they are actually using my phone. If they authenticated and were immediately interacting with their phone I have no problem sharing the hardware for a minute when the wife/kids want to do something briefly on it.
- mixmastamyk 9y agoI don't ever hand anyone my phone and it wouldn't be helpful anyway due to the passcode needed. I understand the point you're making though. You want a phone that's a terminal to the cloud, with caching. That's a fine use case I suppose. Wouldn't stand in your way. Many phones are cheap enough today (not to mention hand-me-downs) that there isn't a huge need however.
- zaroth 9y agoWell I have kids 5 and 8 that when they are using a screen (which is limited) it's always someone else's hardware, usually mine. But it's also bigger than that. If everything you do user-land can be synced down fairly instantly to any piece of hardware - phone, tablet, desktop, TV, watch, etc. - it provides a level of mobility and usability which can enable some very powerful use cases. Approaching a device and have it immediately be "yours" is important for the screens in the self-driving ride you hail, or the shared workspace you might rent by the minute, or even the TV you sit down in front of in your own living room. But this could even extend to the POS terminal which you checkout with at a store, a screen you walk up to in a mall, a digital assistant you approach in a store, an ATM, etc. FaceID is transparent walk-up/pick-up authentication, which is table stakes for some very cool possibilities.
- madez 9y agoWhy would you restrict this to iDevices?
- zaroth 9y agoI'm not sure what you mean? It's not going to work as a 3rd party service. So Apple can do it for its customers and I guess Google for its own, and Microsoft, and so on.... But how is Google going to ensure "full portability" across the lineup of all Android devices in the same way that Apple could do so for iOS? Edit: Maybe this is what you meant? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15234615 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15234615
- jakobegger 9y agoI strongly doubt that Apple will make it easier to share devices. Every Apple device, from Macbooks to iPads to iPhones to Airpods is built to be a personal device. Even Macs, theoretically capable of multi-user, are a pain to share (eg try updating a Mac App Store app purchased with a different user account than the one you are logged in as) Apple doesn’t want to sell one shared device to a family. They want to sell multiple devices to every family member.
- zaroth 9y agoThe number of hours I spend per week in front of an iOS device will not decrease by adding this feature. The number of hours my kids spend in front of iOS could conceivably increase though, speeding up the inevitable point where they get their own...
- addicted 9y agoSteve Jobs talked about this when he returned to Apple. He basically discussed how he would work at his home Mac and then come to the office and login and suddenly with the internet and networking the work Mac would be exactly the same. I think the ideal should basically be that. You can pick up a phone, any phone (limited to iPhones for Aplle), login to your iCloud account and suddenly it's your phone, indistinguishable from the other phone thst was yours, outside maybe unavailable hardware features. That's one of the great things about web apps. I can log into Gmail anywhere and it's the same thing. I haven't used it, but I believe this is the promise ChromeOS delivers.
- copperx 9y agoIsn't this the decades-old idea of Plan9?
- socceroos 9y agoI see distributed computing as a slightly lower-level concept in the more generalised field of ubiquitous computing.
- Someone 9y agoIIRC, it's what he had at NeXT (in the office and on the machine(s) in his home). Plan 9 may have existed at AT&T, but first shipped in 1992 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs#History)
- Sharlin 9y agoIt's the decades-old idea of thin clients.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoNo, it's not, because the CPU is still local, so you're not just using your device as a terminal to a remote server. We don't have the infrastructure for this yet. The absolutely open version - even if it was just storing apps centrally and downloading them on demand, and not downloading everything - would still require something like 100 times more bandwidth than we have now to be usably fast. A workable version, with local storage providing device accounts for a small number of users, would still need more local storage than we have now, and storage isn't cheap enough yet to make this fully affordable. 256/512GB devices could possibly handle family needs, just about, but would struggle at work.
- saeed47 9y agoThat will never work since the facial tracking isn't allowed to be connected to a network. Remember all the data for facial tracking is stored locally.
- lwansbrough 9y agoMicrosoft had this on Windows Phone -- sort of. It was for the most likely scenario: parents who hand their phone to their kids. They called it Kids' Corner, IIRC... Yes, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=475jxWQ955c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=475jxWQ955c
- toephu2 9y agoMultiple users are not a common use-case. Everyone* over the age of 12 has their own phone. I doubt Apple will add that feature anytime soon. *By everyone I mean the majority of people in first world countries, some second, and third.
- discordance 9y agoThe smartphone has become the modern day version of the pacifier. Pretty much every parent I know hands their phone to their child and it's unsettling how effective it is at pacifying children. As for this feature request, I think it makes sense... I wouldn't want my kid tapping on my work email or social apps.
- manigandham 9y agoiPhones have Guided Access which can restrict all usage to a single app: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612
- andrepd 9y agoI wouldn't want my kid tapping on my smartphone at all. That description of "pacifying" is... both spot-on and deeply sad.
- salvar 9y agoWhat do you find deeply sad about it?
- efdee 9y agoModern version of the television, maybe. And why not?
- netc 9y agoIt is a common case for other iOS device(s) though. iPad in a family is usually shared across family members. I do wish apple add this feature in iOS, for iPads at least.
- deepGem 9y agoThis is my only gripe with Apple. It's an incredible PITA to share devices even temporarily. You have to log the primary user out of their phone, login with your credentials and we are in business. This whole process is so long and frustrating that it forbids any sharing experience. I do wish Apple or someone made sharing devices a lot easier.
- exodust 9y agoThe scenario you describe sounds impractical, unlikely and unworkable, a very edge case "iOS fan family". Walking out the door with just "any device" that is laying about? Nobody wants that. For one thing, an object like a phone is a personal device, not a sugar bowl passed around and left anywhere. Your son and daughter will want their own devices, and it makes sense to give them their own devices such as your old phone or cheap phone. For one thing, when you hand your kid your phone you no longer have a phone. Someone might text or call, or the kid will burn through your battery with some game. This only scratches the surface of what's wrong with your idea.
- yoz-y 9y agoI would prefer to only have 3 “users”. Personal, Work and Guest. The Guest account would have access to a list of apps that I have installed but would not share my history and data. For example I do not want my wife’s YouTube history mixed with mine. I think that setting up multiple accounts would make the experience worse as I don’t want other people to get too comfy. On an iPad that is a different case though.
- macroexchange 9y agounfortunately our current global network doesn't allow for proper delegation of trust, so your vision is more like a dystopia where a few single corporations and ultimate governments have ultimate power. homomorphic encryption is way too limited to allow these things. traditional encryption is only about encoding channels, its not about solving runtime and delegation problems. it seems more like its going to be the other way around. giant institutions will be replaced with DAC's which perform the desired functions of users/citizens. I'd be happy enough if iPhone would be an open system where I can run my desired OS of choice, with open hardware components and profits going not to already rich investors, who pay close to 0 tax using Irish/Dutch shell companies, but also more to employees and customers.
- WalterBright 9y agoHeck, it would be nice if my desktops and laptops behaved that way. <plaintive sigh>
- simonh 9y ago>If her phone was ringing and she picks up my device and authenticates it should answer the call. Unfortunately Apple don't get to decide how SIM cards, phone numbers and the cellular networks work. So that's not going to happen. Note how the watch has to have a SIM mated to your phone to take calls on your number. As for FaceID and TouchID, that data isn't supposed to be readable at all, it's never sent to iCloud so how would it get synced between phones? Then there's storage, all the contents of all your family's devices would need to be syncd between them all the time, multiplying up the amount of storage each device would need. You'd completely lose control of managing storage on your own device. You'd also essentially lose control of wireless bandwidth utilisation. It's a lovely dream and maybe one day we'll get there. None of these problems are unsolvable in principle, but nobody can wave a magic wand and make them all go away. I think in the same way secure resource and feature sharing between apps required Apple to develop Secure XPC, this would require a lot of fiddly, complex technological and infrastructure groundwork before it could be possible.
- nsomaru 9y agoMacs can answer incoming calls to an iPhone. Why not route the same way? Maybe there are limitations like needing to be on the same WiFi network or some such.
- simonh 9y agoThe Mac isn't receiving the call, the phone is. The Phone is just handing off the UI to the Mac across Bluetooth and Wifi. If the phones worked this way, if his wife walked out of the house with his phone, and let's be clear at that point there might not even be a way for her to tell she's doing it, it would drop off the local network and incoming and outgoing calls would become impossible.
- lostlogin 9y agoFaceTime audio, FaceTime video and iMessage don't suffer that problem and I preferentially use those. The cloud storage of biometric data is a problem though.
- randomsearch 9y agoSharing phones seems like an absolutely terrible idea. It goes against the simplicity and good design that Apple pursue. I can think of tons of problems with this: being out of signal; having biometric data in cloud; running face matching across huge databases where false positives are extremely likely; interrupted signal where things are corrupt; designing efficient caching algorithms; sharing onboard storage with multiple users; security properties protecting that data... Personal devices are personal for a reason. Simple, elegant, effective. Expensive, yes... but a better solution is to buy your kids cheaper phones.
- randomsearch 9y agoOh, forgot the biggest: battery life killer.
- veidr 9y ago> seems like an absolutely terrible idea Literally every single person in the world with an iPhone and young children wants this feature. I'm guessing based on your proposed solution, you probably don't have kids? They don't want their cheaper phone; they want your phone.
- Aaargh20318 9y ago> They don't want their cheaper phone; they want your phone What they want isn't relevant. Maybe try some parenting.
- veidr 9y agoThanks, but my mom taught me that it's generally better to avoid taking parenting advice from people who say things like, "Humanity is a plague, we breed uncontrolled and our population keeps growing and growing. There is no need for anyone to start a family, there is no shortage of humans."
- stephenr 9y agoFine. How about if I said it. You don't need a phone with a profile for your kid. You need to be a fucking parent.
- blubb-fish 9y ago> can pick up any iDevice, authenticate, and be looking at effectively their own device. This is so obviously the opposite of what Apple has in mind. They want to sell as many phones as possible - not make them shareable.
- zimpenfish 9y agoThe amount of development, testing, and customer support this would require likely outweighs any profit increase by a couple of orders of magnitude. It'll never happen.
- totalZero 9y agoI don't want to share my device, ever. I like to know where it is at all times, even for benign uses like "i need a flashlight, where's my phone" or "what time is it." This feature would not improve my user experience.
- majewsky 9y agoNobody forces you to setup multiple user accounts.
- AlfeG 9y agoEven simple `Child Mode` will help drastically.
- lstroud 9y agoIronically, a lot of tech companies had this vision for the enterprise in the late 90s. Insert your id card and instantly see all your stuff. Interestingly, for the most part the market rejected the idea. I suspect this is an idea that sounds good on paper, but ends up being undesirable to the majority of folks.
- C4stor 9y agoI think there was a lot of very poor executions too to be honest, with loading time everywhere unbearably long.
- yAnonymous 9y agoApple sales rep here. >When I hand my phone to my daughter she should see her apps, my son, his. And when I hand my phone to my wife, she should unlock it and see.... her phone. Don't be so cheap. Visit the next town square and buy everyone their own iPhone. This isn't a problem with our phones, but with your bank account.
- yttrium 9y agoWhat a totally useless comment. Please try harder to contribute to hacker news threads.
- btbuildem 9y agoI'm not walking out of the house with my wife's phone -- it looks like a Russian tank ran it over several times. Concur on all the other points. Devices should be as transparent as possible. They're empty shells by design.
- luvbb 9y agoTouchID is not stored in the cloud. I hope FaceID isn't either.
- jacurtis 9y agoThis would be less beneficial IMHO on a phone. My wife sometimes uses my phone, but she always has her own nearby. when she is using it, its for a quick, specific reason. But I could really see this on an iPad. iPad's are often shared around a household, this would be amazing for that. Macs themselves would also apply here.
- MR4D 9y agoThen it would be a "mePhone" and conflict with their branding. :) On a more serious note, the most I think we'll ever see from them is limited web browsing as a guest user.
- grwthckrmstr 9y ago"I'm still waiting for the ability to add multiple users." One shared device with multiple profiles for your family members VERSUS One device each for each family member To understand how Apple chooses to prioritise, simply ask the question - "Which option makes more money?"