Android 4.1 has rudimentary multiuser support
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 4th Aug 2012 00:54 UTC
Google This tweet from Tom Warren made me smile. So, it's 2012 and tablets are finally able to do what the Amiga did in 1985. Seems like a bit of a stretch to be excited about that, right? Sure, until I caught myself getting excited - only a bit, but still - by this piece of news. Update: removed me being an annoyed child.
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RE: Why?
by zima on Sat 11th Aug 2012 23:59 UTC in reply to "Why?"
zima
Member since:
2005-07-06

A phone is inherently "single-user"

Sharing of mobile phones is quite common in some areas, existing multi-user capabilities of phones are already widely used.

For example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone#Use_of_mobile_phones
In parts of the world, mobile phone sharing is common. It is prevalent in urban India, as families and groups of friends often share one or more mobiles among their members. There are obvious economic benefits, but often familial customs and traditional gender roles play a part.[39] For example, in Burkina Faso, it is not uncommon for a village to have access to only one mobile phone. The phone is typically owned by a person who is not natively from the village, such as a teacher or missionary, but it is expected that other members of the village are allowed to use the cell phone to make necessary calls.[40]

And if you'd go to conversations.nokia.com and search for (IIRC) Nokia 1280 for example (not the only one, there are "higher" models like that; or search some keywords around mobile phones and developing world, emerging markets, the next billion), you'd see that many phones can have few separate accounts for contacts, messages, call management timers and counters - specifically to be shared.

Yes, it's not exactly about what we think of as smartphones, but a) what is a smartphone, anyway? (inexpensive, sub-40€ without contract, S40 phones also have apps, are also used for browsing: http://www.opera.com/smw/2011/11/ ) b) Android will trickle down to price brackets in question (and there are still cultural factors)

Edited 2012-08-12 00:19 UTC

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