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.

We solved it once and for all by creating a new Apple ID under the new email address.

If those same parents could instead just hand off their ipad to their children and have it only load their apps this could lead to them being more familiar with ios and buying apple devices later in life.

Not a guarantee obviously, but it could theoretically have an impact in future sales and market share.

And on the other hand, there are also benefits (for Apple) of encouraging one-user-per-phone. For example, it makes it more likely it becomes an extension of your identity. Having multiple users per phone undermines that type of personal attachment.

This isn't something that started with Apple - mobile numbers have always been tied to individuals - but it's very convenient for their "lifestyle" approach to selling their units.

True, it will not exactly boost sales, but it will not decrease them. It will make some people more likely to recommend Apple. Everyone will still have their own phone.

You can overcome the risk of decreasing the likelihood of creating personal attachment by letting the foreign user log in to a de-personalized (no custom wallpaper and so on) space and use a limited subset of functionality, e.g. a browser, contact list, the Apple messenger app and a phone app (that would call from your own number/phone over VoIP); this functionality would be available only when both phones are connected to the same wifi.

It would be so fantastic if he could just start HIS apps and would access a restricted Prime account. My 6 yo is the same and since he was 2 1/2 I switched by iPhone twice. So I don't see the case that it's not important as they will get their own ones when they are 8 or so - that's 5 generations of iPhones.

https://source.android.com/devices/tech/admin/multi-user

>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.

He's talking about each person having their OWN DEVICE, but being able to seamlessly switch between devices among their family group.

> Every Apple device, from Macbooks to iPads to iPhones to Airpods is built to be a personal device. (...) Apple doesn’t want to sell one shared device to a family. They want to sell multiple devices to every family member.

Not sure why people are having problem understanding that.

So Apple devices are actually closer to being a PC than what we commonly call a Personal Computer.

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.

I don't think this is the right end game. Now that almost every adult in the 1st world has a mobile phone in their pocket that is more than capable of being a desktop PC, the solution we should be heading for is universal docking stations (preferably) wireless. So that wherever you are, there's a large screen+keyboard+mouse (or the phone screen can be a trackpad) and your phone just connects to those, be it at work, or home, or in a hotel.

Your main machine is in your pocket; a lot of non-techie people don't even have any other personal computing device (laptop/desktop etc.).

Personally tho, I like having a division between my work machine(s), and my home machine(s).

If I could also get a laptop-like dock, my phone would take care of ~95% of all my computing needs.

Strictly personal, though. I envision simply having a different phone for for work, for privacy reasons. But plugging it into the same docks.

Rumors have been circulating for years about some future Microsoft mobile device. The latest rumors suggest a Windows 10 ARM device with x86 emulation and their new CShell "responsive" UI. If that rumor pans out, it's possible Windows 10 ARM may also include the Windows Linux subsystem, getting you closer to your ideal.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

The docking station for my Thinkpad doesn't lock me into a specific software ecosystem. I see no reason why a hypothetical phone dock should be any different.

And yet, I insist on having a completely separate phone of my own, on my own subscription, completely separate from work.

The work phone is business-only, I have my company email, all of the apps we offer, and the ones we use internally, and that's it.

The personal phone has all the Facebook and messaging and other funtime apps that I use personally, and nothing work-related whatsoever.

The reason for all of this is that I used to have a boss who would call or email at 23:00 and ask me to do something, expecting it to be ready at 09:00 next morning, at the very latest. Because I'm on a "no maximum work hours" contract, he expected me to put in hours basically whenever he wanted (he was later fired, big surprise).

This is why I have two phones, and why my work phone now gets turned off when I leave work, and turned back on when I arrive in the morning. My personal life is not to be mixed with my work.

I fully understand the revulsion towards the day phone/night phone thing. My setup is not a case of handing over, it's a matter of keeping my personal life private.

We have two of them in this household, they are VERY nice phones.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/

I also like a division between home and work devices, but I largely accomplish that by simply having a Personal and Work account with Google.

More appealing to me is the idea of being able to have my Work computer with me all the time if needed, without carrying a special bag, etc. I like the vision of Universal Docking Stations, where you go the coffee shop and just sit down and start typing on your own device, with a full sized screen and keyboard, which you carry in your pocket.

A lot of people have had that idea over the years (remember John Gage's "the network is the computer"?) You could even argue The Shockwave Rider, a 1975 Science Fiction novel, described it pretty well.

I don't know about the Steve Jobs quote though, do you have a link?

Technology-wise it was a bit of a dead end. However the underlying protocol was VNC which they invented for this purpose.

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.

[1] via sshfs

In any case, my desires are for the opposite. If you don't own the storage substrate, you don't own the data on it, and I prefer to own my data. I have an iPhone, but don't use iCloud, except for syncing a couple specific things.

I remember the first release, and remember the NeXT model of "home directories on an optical drive". I was really, really hoping at the time that the iPhone would be that home directory, portable between machines. Now, I join the chorus of folks who think I should just be able to plug a monitor and keyboard into my phone. But that also needs to come with a viable computing environment, which for me means a unix shell and hardware control. Which is why I'm bolting for an open phone, as soon one actually gets off the ground.

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.

Imagine anyone points their phone at you in the street, and there they are looking at your phone, your contacts, your apps, everything.

You need your iCloud login/password and also (I think) an existing device which has the key to approve the request.

This is literally no different than how it works exactly today when restoring an iCloud backup onto a new phone, except imagine it can happen as a polyfill so it looks instantaneous instead of the 2-4 hours it seems to take today.

polyfill definitely doesn't mean what you think it does.

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.

Personal devices are personal for a reason. Simple, elegant, effective. Expensive, yes... but a better solution is to buy your kids cheaper phones.

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.

I literally think you don't know what that word means.

Edit: David Cross explains this point better than I ever could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ly1UTgiBXM

  Literally (informal): Used for emphasis while not being literally true.

Consider:

1. It's been used like this for centuries

2. By well-known writers including Dickens, Twain, Fitzgerald, Joyce, Brontë

3. The definition of such usage is included in all major dictionaries

4. It's incredibly common in real-life use of the language

To somehow insist that it doesn't mean that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, requires extraordinary feats of denial.

0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...

I'd guess most people hand down their old phone to their kids and then carry that for occasions where they might need them (distraction while waiting somewhere, etc). I don't give my phone to my kids otherwise because I don't want them to drop it and break the screen.

(I'm an iPhone user and have kids.)

I used to have the big iPad Pro while my kids had the old busted iPad whatever-it-was. But they were like (to paraphrase), "Fuck you dad, that busted shit loads YouTube hella slow, we want yours!"

So I ended up with a busted old iPad in a drawer, my kids having the big iPad Pro, and I got myself the new smaller 10.5 one. They know they can't use that one, but they accept it because theirs is bigger and not noticeably slower or worse for the things they do.

Also, just to ward off more "bro, do you even parent?" comments from people with no kids: No, I don't let my kids use the iPad whenever they want. No, they don't get to watch TV and eat trash whenever they feel like it. They do chores and read books. Woo hoo.

But, anybody with kids will tell you: trying to implement a you will never, ever, under any circumstances, use my phone policy is completely insane. It will make your kids life worse, and it will make your life as a parent a LOT worse.

Oh shit, this United flight is stuck on the tarmac for an extra 180 minutes, and all our new coloring books are already done!

Buddy, I know you're tired, but this is a funeral service for good old Uncle Jesse who suddenly and tragically died, we really need you to hold it together so we can deal with your little brother who is definitely not...

(Et cetera times 1000 pls use your imagination...)

So in these instances, you really want to be able to hand your phone to your child. And if you do so, every piece of data you've stored in the cloud is at risk. And you just can't have critical business data on your phone. Which limits how useful the phone can be to you.

It's like having your own real, biological Chaos Monkey.

And it can be humorous. I laughed when my wife bought a new MacBook and during the very first 10 minutes of setting it, somehow pressed 'th' and had it auto-expand into 20 paragraphs of Japanese text. She was like, wtf, and handed me the machine... boom! Another 20 paragraphs of Japanese text (seemed to be a cooking blog post).

What I guess happened is:

1. somehow, some kid managed to copy a blog post

2. then they managed to somehow get to the "Text Expansion" settings on one of her iOS devices

3. then, they somehow managed to create a new shortcut for "th" and paste all the blog content into the shortcut expansion text area (didn't even think that was possible?)

4. the cloud did its cloud thing and now my wife can't type "the" on any of her machines

That's just a guess as to how that happened. But shit like that happens pretty regularly. The Chaos Monkeys also managed to delete my favorite photo of my wife — I only noticed because it was my favorite, so who knows how many non-favorites they've deleted. The weirdest shit shows up in my photo stream. I have thousands of notes consisting of variants of 'afhdsf8aiyfoew9ry4t340822u9rtf20悪悪悪'. And I can't find this super-super-important receipt in Evernote... another heinous data-loss Evernote bug, or.... the Monkey???

So yeah. Just because you'd like to hand your phone to your child safely does not necessarily mean you're a shitty parent.

If Apple had multi-user on iPhone, or even just a limited Guest Mode, it would get close to completely solving this problem.

My kids (2yo and 5yo) never use my phone and I haven't noticed an issue with my insisting on that. It's likely that they're not old enough to know that the age of their devices is limiting their play so I'll grant that I avoid that issue. And my wife isn't as insistent, so will share her phone with them to keep the peace, but it doesn't seem to be that often.

Might be the ages of the kids? Maybe 5-10yo is tougher?

Neither of my sisters, with multiple kids, want this feature. In fact, of all the people I know with iPhones and kids, only one has ever mentioned this.

And he believes coloured TTYs are an abomination.

But if you asked all parents on earth "Hey, would you like to be able to hand your kid your phone and have them be able to use some apps, but not necessarily be able to delete all your data?" I think that the positive response would get pretty close to the literal meaning of "literally all".

What they want isn't relevant. Maybe try some parenting.

But no, you just went and dig some comments from that user just to try to make a point ? What is this childish and grudgeful behavior, seriously ? I know, you answered since but you're just digging deeper, and still can't answer properly in a productive way why what they want matters more anyways.

Way to elevate the debate.

But I'm old, and still don't accept that the only way to have a child behave is to give them endless snacks and electronic entertainment on demand.

BTW, Mom, thanks for being such a great parent when I was little!

:-)

I'm beginning to fear that for the vast majority of humans the urge to procreate is ingrained at such a fundamental level that no amount of rational thought can overcome it. Like the 3 laws of robotics that cannot be overruled, humans seems to have a rule that 'thou shall increase thy numbers'. We could grow until the planet is covered in 100 story skyscrapers where everyone lives like in a Japanese capsule hotel and there would still be people insisting that we grow the population.

Frankly, I think we as a species are fucked.

I think we are headed in the right direction though. The rate of growth plateaus in very developed nations, so we might just survive the current craziness.

The correlation is well-known and widely documented. Native - i.e. non-immigrant - populations in the US and Europe are both shrinking now, sometimes dramatically.

And when is that going to be something that's true for the entire global population ? It would require us to get rid of some massive issues regarding inequality and that is never going to happen.

So, it doesn't have to alter the security attack surface or really even a major change in the secure element.

Someone from Apple should just reach out, the design is not simple but it's absolutely workable.

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.

They obviously already have this tech most of the way there and just... haven't implemented it?

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.

Maybe there are limitations like needing to be on the same WiFi network or some such.

*By everyone I mean the majority of people in first world countries, some second, and third.

As for this feature request, I think it makes sense... I wouldn't want my kid tapping on my work email or social apps.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612

I wouldn't even mind having a sync server in the house (a desktop mac, maybe) to help with that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Your kids want their own device. They will get it sooner or later. Mobile devices by nature are personal objects, complete with personal greasy screens and battery levels we have nobody else to blame for.

Approaching a device and having it become "yours" might be a fine idea for certain applications, but I'd argue the living room TV is better off having a default profile which everyone in the house uses. If one person's profile is lagging or missing content or apps or settings, they fall behind and we now have a frustrating scenario of some profiles better than others for watching TV. Obviously sub-usage areas such as Netflix makes sense to have different profiles, but not the whole TV.

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?"

Concur on all the other points. Devices should be as transparent as possible. They're empty shells by design.

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.

On a more serious note, the most I think we'll ever see from them is limited web browsing as a guest user.

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