Impersonal Computing: 3 Apps for iPad Sharers

iOS isn't really designed for multiple user profiles, so what happens when an iPad is shared among two or more people? Users may want to keep things like mail, social network access and browser bookmarks partitioned and secure. Here are three apps iPad sharers can use for private and convenient access to personal services and functions.

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A cellphone is probably about as personal a device as you can get, aside from something like a pacemaker. Of any electronic thingy not sewn to or inside your body, a cellphone is typically the one most personalized to an individual user. That's your address book on there, your email, your Facebook page, your browsing history, your "Tiny Wings" high score. That's the number people call to reach you, nobody else.

Tablets can be a different animal. For the most part, users don't carry them around every time they leave the house -- they're not part of the wallet/keys/phone power trio. I'd feel a lot less strange and vaguely inappropriate borrowing someone's iPad than I would handling that person's iPhone. In fact, in a lot of cases an iPad doesn't belong to just one person. Instead, it's used more as a common-use computer, shared by multiple people in the same home or office.

But since the iPad uses a version of iOS that's almost exactly like the iPhone's, it's built for personalization. For instance, the Mail app can support multiple email accounts, but it doesn't feel like it was designed to support multiple users -- just a single user's various inboxes. Same with Calendar and Contacts.

Designing a version of iOS to cater to multiple user profiles would be well within Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) power (here's a concept someone dreamed up to show you how it might work). But where's the revenue in that? Keeping tablets personalized means everyone is compelled to buy their own rather than share.

But for offices or households that simply can't afford to put an iPad in every hand, certain apps can be used to make the more personalized functions of the tablet separate for each individual user.

Private Mail Slot

Mailboxes, an app from Lilliput Labs, is available for US$2.99 at the App Store.

Mailboxes

One of the first things a new iPad owner will do is set up email to sync with the tablet. Very easy to do, but what if two or more people will be using that iPad? You can set up multiple email accounts just as easily as the first, but navigating all the way back to the account selector in Mail is a bit clunky, and there isn't much of a partition in between accounts. Basically, everyone can read everyone else's mail if they want to. That might be desirable to some people, but others may want a barrier of some sort between multiple users.

The most immediate solution to that might be to just have everyone access their own email through the Web browser. But if everyone wants to avoid having to type out their names and passwords every time they want to check email (and if everyone happens to be a Gmail user), Mailboxes is the place to start.

The app lets you set up multiple user accounts for Gmail addresses, each of which is protected by a four-digit PIN, rather than a full name and password. When the app is opened, you'll see a list of account names. Hit yours, select your PIN, and you arrive in your own protected Gmail account.

You'll arrive at Gmail's typical interface, the same one you'd see if you accessed it through your iPad's browser. All the usual features are here -- inbox, starred, sent mail, drafts, search, etc. It uses the familiar two-pane mode to show a list of messages on the left and the selected message on the right. Touch a link and you'll access it through a built-in browser, rather than be kicked over to Safari.

Signing out is automatic ... sort of. Minimizing the app won't do it. Locking the iPad with the top button won't do it either (not immediately, anyway). Actively closing the app will sign you out (minimize, double-tap Home, hold icon to jiggle, tap the minus sign). And if I minimized and then waited for the iPad's auto-lock to kick in, I'd be asked for the PIN before getting back to Mailboxes. Your best bet is probably to just hit the Sign Out button in the upper right corner of the screen when you're finished.

Mailboxes' main feature is very simple -- you can open up email without tapping out your full address and password like you would if you went directly through Safari. It works and it provides a real convenience. However, it's only an option for Gmail users. Perhaps its developers can work in HotMail, Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) Mail and other services with a major upgrade.

My Space, Your Space (for Facebook)

Friendly, an app from Oecoway, is available for 99 cents at the App Store.

Friendly

Facebook is another one of those personal functions one might not want to share will the iPad's other users. Like Gmail, you could cue up Facebook.com in Safari, then type out your full email and password to log on. But Friendly allows for multiple user accounts in basically the same way Mailboxes is set up. You sign in once and your info is saved. Once you've accessed your profile the first time, you can set a PIN by hitting the Friendly menu bar in the upper left corner.

Oddly enough, Friendly is probably the app you'd want to use for accessing Facebook on iPad even if multiple users weren't a concern. Facebook has no official iPad app -- you either have to use the miniaturized iPhone version or go with Safari.

Even though Friendly is not sponsored or endorsed by Facebook, it does the social network justice. The standard news feed is there, with options for Most Recent or Top News. The commenting and Like functions are intact, video is supported, messages and chat are all present -- this is exactly what Facebook should be on an iPad.

Links found in posts take you to a built-in browser, which can also be accessed by hitting the Google-branded "g" in the upper-right corner of the news feed. The built-in browser has tools for sharing, linking and opening in Safari.

Friendly doesn't seem to want to log you out automatically unless the program is actively killed or the iPad is restarted. Perhaps there's some minimize/lock/shutdown ritual I'm overlooking, but just like it is with Mailboxes, the best way to end your sessions is to actively sign off. In Friendly, that's done by hitting the upper-left menu bar, but at this point the app gives you a confusing pair of options: "Lock and Switch Account" or "Logout." Logout will erase your sign-in info from the app; you'll have to type it all in again instead of your PIN next time you want to use it. "Lock and Switch" takes you back to the user menu. Even when I know the difference it's easy to screw this up, though.

Browsing Solo

Switch, an app from Michael O'Brien, is available for $4.99 at the App Store.

Mail and Facebook are probably the two most personal functions the iPad's used for, but the browser itself can be regarded as somewhat personal too. Your browsing history might be something you want to keep to yourself (insert your own reason here). Same for goes for bookmarks. And it's not necessarily a privacy issue either -- sometimes you just don't want to have to wade through someone else's collection of inane bookmarks.

A browser that offers private, multi-user profiles can also do the jobs of Mailboxes, Friendly and more. If you don't mind saving your usernames and passwords to your email account, your Facebook page, your Twitter profile, and any other services you can access through the browser, then you might decide you have no need for specific multi-user apps like the two above. Just access everything through your own private browser profile.

The app that does this on iPad is called "Switch." You know the routine by now -- create a personal profile for each user, then password-protect it if you want (it's an actual password with Switch, not a PIN). It even has a guest profile option.

When you sign on, the browser will be your own personal browser. Your history will be yours only, and it'll only be visible to your account. Your booksmarks will all be your own, and you'll even start on the page where you last signed off, regardless of whether someone else used Switch for their own browsing.

Since your Switch profile is yours alone and it's password-protected (if you want it to be), you might feel comfortable with letting it store your logon info for various sites you visit frequently. Combine that with the Bookmark list, and you have instant, private, personalized sign-on to just about any profile or service accessible on the Web, though it might not look as tidy in a browser as in an app.

Aside from the user profiles, Switch is a no-frills browser. You can go page forward and back, do multiple panes, create bookmarks, browse and clear your history, type in a URL and do a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search. And that's about it. Nothing essential's missing, but its real bright-and-shiny feature is the main one -- the ability to switch.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72459.html

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