Even changing the email address of the Apple account is a world of pain. It confuses all of the ecosystem. But I think it is just poor software design, not necessarily malice.

Who needs malice if one can have poor software design for free.

that's a good quote. Not sure if it means much, but it sounds good and intelligent :)

I targeted "funny", but "intelligent" sounds good too.

I've had the pain of trying to do this once before when my parents got a new email address. The Apple account was never consistent thereafter, with different devices showing either the new or old email address.

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

The problem with doing that is the music and the apps purchased.

I think it might be OK if you turn on family sharing and add the new Apple ID?

Being allowed to have my own email address that I bought that relates to my domain would make iCloud a lot better. But it's not all that difficult to stumble across brittle edges unfortunately, so adding more isn't going to be helpful.

The 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...

That's just it, though. It's not about number of hours for Apple. It's about units sold.

More hours would lead to more sold units.

Not if people share their phones.

It still could. Many people buy their kids cheap tablets now because buying them an ipad is too expensive, and later in life those kids will be familiar enough with the Android ecosystem that they may never switch to Apple devices.

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.

Given that a lot of Apple users seem buy a new phone/tablet whenever it's available, I think children end up with the older models.

Still no decrease of sold units

I'm not sure what you mean by that, since what I'm implying is that there is no real economic incentive for Apple to support multiple users.

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.

Mobile phones will never be shared by people who don't already share them. This is a convenience functionality, not something that would change how you use the device - from the exact reason you said: mobile phones are extensions of identities. This feature is something you would use when your own phone is out of reach (e.g. on a shelf in the living room) and your wife's phone is with you in the kitchen.

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.

I don't see it as being that cut and dry. These new features would have to be focus tested, designed, tested, rolled out, and tested some more. There are maintenance costs for it, as well as additional configuration to present to the user. Done poorly, this sharing option might be simply ignored by the user making the above a waste of time and resources that could be spent elsewhere.

It still seems like good investment considering Apple's abundance of those resources.

Adults will never actually have one phone for more people (maybe except for old people, but they don't need this feature to share the phone), it's always just a convenient feature when your phone is on the desk and your wife's one is om the sofa you're sitting on.

But the number of devices sold by Apple would multiply, which is the whole point.

considering all the hype of a sharing economy would not the opposite be more true?

Only if hype and reality are the same thing.

Then, at least around iPhone, they're idiots. I'm not going to have one cellphone for the whole family. Even in the best case scenario of my wife being a stay-at-home mom, I'm going to work. I'm not leaving my phone with her all day at home. And she's not going without a cellphone all day. So... where's the "one device per family" coming in? Even if we assume kids "share" - that works until they're what? 5? 6? 10? At some point the kid is going to want a phone at the same time you do, and eventually "No because I said so" is going to fall on deaf ears.

My 3 yo borrows my iPhone when we ride home from kindergarden and I don't want that he fells asleep. So he watches an episode of Fireman Sam on Amazon Prime or plays a game. He unlocks the phone with his "magic finger" and after 20 min I get my phone back.

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.

I assumed iOS had multiple users, no? Android has native multi-user functionality, primary, secondary, and guest users. It allows to do exactly what you are asking. Samsung has an additional feature where a folder keeps a unique set apps (sandbox) that can be completely different than the rest of the phone. Samsung calls it a secure folder. That allows each set of users to have two set of apps if needed.

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

my $200 Xiaomi phone has exactly this functionality - 'second space', unlockable by second fingerprint

$40 Amazon Fire tablet.

I think you read the exact opposite of what GP wrote.

No, I really didn't.

>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.

Why are you arguing completely different points then?

I believe he's arguing against the idea that Apple won't implement this device sharing because they don't want to sell only one device per family.

Because he is not replying to GP, he is replying to the parent:

> 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.

Oh, you just replied to the wrong comment.

I think GP was just saying that in the case of phones, it's silly to try to make the devices single-user since people are going to want to have their own phone anyway, even if they could log in to their partner's phone and see "their own".

"No because $1000" is a valid answer in my house.

I don't think that anyone was suggesting that they will pay $1000 for a child to have a phone. The iPhone SE sells for $150 - $199 brand new from bestbuy: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/at-t-prepaid-apple-iphone-se-4g...

Good price - is that SIM-locked to the prepaid carrier?

Yes. I think it needs to be in service with them for 6(?) months before they unlock?

> I strongly doubt that Apple will make it easier to share devices.

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

I don't think Macs are at all a pain to share, and your example isn't very compelling.