10 ms·
And someone finally implements the killer-feature for the "Family Tablet": Multi-Account Support: > But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it's the first truly
by fr0sty 14y ago
And someone finally implements the killer-feature for the "Family Tablet": Multi-Account Support:
> But what makes Nexus 10 unique is that it's the first truly shareable tablet. With Android 4.2, you can add multiple users and switch between them instantly right from the lockscreen. We believe that everyone should have quick and easy access to their own stuff -- email, apps, bookmarks, and more. That way, everyone can have their own home screens, their own music, and even their own high scores.
- acgourley 14y agoNice catch, that's a huge step forward. But is that not on the nexus 7?
- stanleydrew 14y agoIt is an Android 4.2 feature so I'm sure it's also on the Nexus 7 and Nexus 4. But those devices are smaller and less likely to be shared so they are not playing multi-user up in those marketing materials I suspect.
- bitcartel 14y agoHopefully it will be available on phones, as a 'Guest' mode would be perfect for lending your phone to someone to make a quick call or text message.
- pooriaazimi 14y agoI could even do with a guest mode that would allow the poor fellow to browse the internet (only on WiFi, even)... :(
- hendi_ 14y agoNope :-( "Available only on tablets.", see http://www.android.com/whatsnew/ http://www.android.com/whatsnew/
- stanleydrew 14y agoWell that's disappointing. I suppose they thought the UI was too confusing to put it on smaller screens?
- Evbn 14y agoThe UI is on the lock screen, so plenty of room. More likely (1) Honeycomb style rush job and (2) "everyone should have their oen phone"
- lambda 14y agoWell, it makes a little less sense on phones, since unless you switch the SIM card, you are still treated as the other person as far as the phone network is concerned. It would be a little odd to be logged in as one person, but the phone network treat you as the other. And since there are features like importing and exporting contacts from the SIM card, those would be more complicated in multi-user scenarios. I think there's a certain sense that a phone is a much more "personal" device than a tablet. While it would probably be possible to add multi-user support, it would be more difficult, and be less useful, than on a tablet.
- jackalope 14y agoWhile I personally find it annoying, I know many parents that hand their phone to their young children to play games or music. Multiuser support is very much in demand on phones, even if it offered nothing more than a safe guest account.
- alykhalid 14y agoWith kid's corner feature in windows phone 8, you can have fine grain control over what the kids have access to.
- estel 14y agoThey probably also thought (understandably?) that the use-case for a tablet is more likely to involve sharing than a phone.
- hkmurakami 14y agoI believe the recent Nexus 7 update was 4.1.2 and not 4.2, so this feature is (unfortunately) still missing for Nexus 7, as others have affirmed.
- pixdamix 14y agoIt may be related to patents: "Why Android Jelly Bean 4.2′s Multiple User Account Switching Is Tablet-Only? (Hint: Nokia Patented It For Phones)" http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/29/why-android-jelly-bean-4-2s-multiple-user-account-switching-is-tablet-only-hint-nokia-patented-it-for-phones/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/29/why-android-jelly-bean-4-2s...
- upthedale 14y agoDoesn't Windows 8/RT do this too?
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoSurface beat them by 3 days ;)
- Mythbusters 14y agowith kid's corner feature to boot so that you can have fine grain control over what the kids have access to.
- himlion 14y agoI hope the google version is extendable by apps so someone can implement this.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jebblue 14y agoUnfortunately it's not running on Linux and it's running Windows.
- mh- 14y agowhy is this relevant to the end users?
- StavrosK 14y agoWill phones get this? Or other-size tablets? Does anyone know when the 4.2 update will go out?
- hendi_ 14y agoNope :-( "Available only on tablets.", see http://www.android.com/whatsnew/ http://www.android.com/whatsnew/ New versions of Android usually roll out to Nexus devices days or weeks after the release of the new hardware. So you should expect November 13th + X days.
- StavrosK 14y agoIn that case, :( and :). Thanks for the reply!
- andrewpi 14y agoIf you're comfortable running unofficial ROMs, I'm pretty sure ROM developers will have multi-user support running on phones as soon as they get the source code.
- tremendo 14y agoOn a phone, wouldn't you need to also switch the SIM card? It seems to me that switching accounts on a phone might not be practical if the device still answers to the same phone number. Am I wrong?
- w1ntermute 14y agoAnd just $399 for the 16 GB version!
- mtgx 14y agoAnd with that crazy resolution.
- meritt 14y agoWhy is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768? Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080 (I'll leave my rant about 16:10 vs. 16:9 for another time). Technology is so ridiculous at times.
- w1ntermute 14y ago> Why is it we have amazing 16:10 2560-by-1600 in a 10" tablet but commonplace laptops (13-15") rarely surpass 1680x1050 or even worse 1366x768? Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling. > Sometimes, on high-end models, you can pay an extra $200 to "upgrade" to 1920x1080 Because they know they can rip you off, and because it's a lot more expensive to produce high resolution displays (or rather, displays of any resolution) when they're being produced in small quantities.
- akmiller 14y ago> Because Windows and Windows apps don't support resolution-independent UI scaling. If I'm not mistaken the new, formerly known as "Metro", UI is vector based and any applications built with the WPF which includes all Windows 8 GUI based applications (at least the non-html one's) are of course vector based so it's simply up to the designer/developer to scale it however they want.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
- rplnt 14y agoBoth Gnome and KDE became touch-ready over the years. They of course have this feature. I just wonder, does any manufacturer sell their tablets with these?
- ralfn 14y agoThey have not became touch ready. Their desktop shells have, the actual applications all still have cascading menu's for god sake's. As a platform they are ready, as an ecosystem, not even close. And few if any of the stakeholders are focusing on the actual applications, so i wouldnt hold my breath.
- josteink 14y agoBoth Gnome and KDE became touch-ready over the years. As someone who has loaded Ubuntu onto my Asus Transformer tablet, let me tell you, no they haven't.
- rlf 14y agoThis sharing feature isn't of interest to me. IMO, a tablet is a very personal device which I don't want to share. My wife and I tried sharing one tablet and it just didn't work because we both always wanted to be using it. Now she has her iPad and I have mine.
- martythemaniak 14y agoShameless Plug: Kytephone (https://www.kytephone.com/ https://www.kytephone.com/) adds a de-facto multi-account support to any Android phone or tablet running 2.2 or above. It's aimed at adding accounts for kids and while it's not as extensive as the baked-in one (kids can't have their own gmail account for example) it does come with goodies such as time limits for games.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago>kids can't have their own gmail account for example // http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1350409 http://support.google.com/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a... Kids [under 13, dependent on region] "can't" have their own gmail account anyway, it's against the rules.
- Rastafarian 14y agoRight, and what percent of the population do you think cares about some rules, some suits from Google made up?
- pbhjpbhj 14y agoHence "can't". If you do want to obey the rules there's probably nothing in the rules about not using an account created by a parent, indeed acting as agent for that same parent when creating the account is probably within the rules too.
- btb 14y agoYeah I've been wondering which tablet/pad to recommend to my parents. They arent that much into computers, and I dont think they want to have two tablets lying around when one is all they need. So for them the nexus 10 sounds like a good choice, provided that the multi account implementation allows them to keep their emails private. From the google info page it sounded like you didnt need passwords to switch accounts, which I found a bit odd. Will wait for the reviews for specifics.
- netcan 14y agoI like that. Makes switching easy.