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Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

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Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#21

Post by rkon »

Better yet, why hasn't anyone created an app that just simulates a guest mode? A launcher with two sets of home screens would be perfect. Or, you just disable your preferred launcher when handing your phone to a friend, revealing the mostly barren stock screens. It's as simple as hiding icons, since the apps might as well not exist if the icons aren't there (access doesn't actually need to be explicitly forbidden, per se).

Maybe I'm missing something important here, but it seems many apps on the Android market are just a few tweaks away from doing this already?

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#22

Post by pygorex »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #9

"Why Don’t Smartphones Have A Guest Mode?" Because dealing with multiple profiles and/or different profile types is a fucking huge giant pain the ass and a monumental amount of work! Xbox has local, guest, live silver, and live gold accounts. Dealing with all the different profiles and switching between is a nightmare. Urgh, no thanks.

IOS is really a stripped-down Unix-variant (BSD). You know, Unix, the world's most ubiquitous operating system, that supports multiple user accounts out of the box.

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#23

Post by groby_b »

tomkarlo wrote: post #4

This is also why any app that handles sensitive information (including, arguably, the photo and video galleries) on a phone should have at least the _option_ to set an in-app PIN that's required before it opens up. Lots of folks hand their smartphone to their kids to play games and even if there's nothing sensitive on there, they might have things they don't want deleted like treasured photos and videos.

It's not only about deletion. There's also the issue that you might want to restrict who can see what photos. (I.e. PINs on subsets of your pix)

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#24

Post by masklinn »

jerrya wrote: post #16

Somewhat related: I've long wondered why ATM cards don't have something similar. 1234 is my regular PIN. 1235 is my help I'm being robbed PIN -- it dispenses the cash, calls the cops, and tags the video.

Probably because the SIM standard has no provision for two local PINs.

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#25

Post by pygorex »

groby_b wrote: post #19
burgerbrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't this a solved problem... 40 years ago? At least?

Sure. If you're willing to log out of your smart phone context, and restart any needed tools in the new guest context whenever you hand over your phone. Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted instantaneous user switching? That's a smidgen harder than the 40-year-old solutions :)

You mean Fast user switching? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_user_switching

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#26

Post by masklinn »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #5

I'm more bewildered to why no tablets seem to have multi-user functionality. In my experience, tablets get shared far more often than phones.

> I'm more bewildered to why no tablets seem to have multi-user functionality.

That's the first thing I wondered about when Apple released the ipad: from the start, this looked like a family/eminently shareable device (and within a month you had reports of it being used as a shared family device, picked and left on the living room table for quick sessions of browsing or game), it felt weird that all the tablets were single-user, and the more time passes the weirder it is.

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#27

Post by masklinn »

groby_b wrote: post #19
burgerbrain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't this a solved problem... 40 years ago? At least?

Sure. If you're willing to log out of your smart phone context, and restart any needed tools in the new guest context whenever you hand over your phone. Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted instantaneous user switching? That's a smidgen harder than the 40-year-old solutions :)

> Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted instantaneous user switching? That's a smidgen harder than the 40-year-old solutions :)

These OS have been able to run multiple concurrent user sessions for 40 years, and fast user switching has been a feature of all desktop OS since Windows 9x went the way of the dodo.

There are specific issues (core services of these systems are probably — sadly — coded with the idea that a single user is running), but nothing which should be hard to fix.

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#28

Post by polymatter »

jerrya wrote: post #16

Somewhat related: I've long wondered why ATM cards don't have something similar. 1234 is my regular PIN. 1235 is my help I'm being robbed PIN -- it dispenses the cash, calls the cops, and tags the video.

Will people change banks for it (compared to say, vague promises of better customer service)?

Will people pay a premium for it (compared to say, offering more air miles)?

I'd be willing to bet that for most people it simply isn't worth the investment for them.

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#29

Post by dredmorbius »

pygorex wrote: post #22
forrestthewoods wrote: post #9

"Why Don’t Smartphones Have A Guest Mode?" Because dealing with multiple profiles and/or different profile types is a fucking huge giant pain the ass and a monumental amount of work! Xbox has local, guest, live silver, and live gold accounts. Dealing with all the different profiles and switching between is a nightmare. Urgh, no thanks.

IOS is really a stripped-down Unix-variant (BSD). You know, Unix, the world's most ubiquitous operating system, that supports multiple user accounts out of the box.

And whose name, in fact, stems from "uni-plexing" -- it was an operating system designed to support two users, so that Dennis and Ken could play Space Travel. A weak pun on "Multics" (multiplexing operating system).

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/hist.html

Re: Why Don’t Smartphones Have A “Guest Mode”?

#30

Post by kennu »

benvanderbeek wrote: post #2

Privacy is important. But why not just avoid keeping weird stuff on your phone? Keep it somewhere else. Or say, "hold on let me log out of my bank app" or something.

"Hold on, let me log out of my Facebook app, my Messenger app, my Twitter app, my WhatsApp app, my Path app, my Yammer app, my LinkedIn app, my Evernote app, ... And disable all my email accounts and iMessage and clear my text messages and web history. Here you go."
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