I came up with a great way to do iOS User Switching (Feedback Requested!)

I was in the shower pretending it was WWDC 2015 and I came up with a way to do iOS User Switching. It's designed specifically for the iPad. The iPhone and iPod touch wouldn't have this feature.

Accessing the accounts
How it would happen is at the lock screen, instead of swiping right to unlock, you can swipe left, and a list of users and their icons appear. Tapping one will change the background to the user's personal background, and they can swipe to unlock. Also, at any time the user can swipe up on Control Center, and a new option appears that shows their photo and name. When they tap on that, a list of users comes up. What's unique is that you can even have it so if you switch while an app is open, you can have the option to switch to your account AND keep that app open. So if Sarah is on Facebook on the iPad and AJ wants to switch to his Facebook, rather than switch to his account and go find the app and re-open it, the account switches to his AND Facebook automatically switches to his account, without even having to leave the app.







Passwords and Sharing
Each account can have an individual password and can have individual apps as well. Individual apps can be shared through one account (like a family account or multiple accounts under the new Family Sharing option, sharing apps). If each account wants to use an individual iCloud account without Family Sharing, but they both want to use the same app (i.e. both accounts want to use Netflix and Facebook), then the app can be updated by either user. In addition, thanks to iOS 8's Family Sharing, each account on the device can pick and choose which iTunes content is sharable. For example, if Michael really wants to listen to Jack's new Coldplay album, but doesn't want Jack's entire music library, they can choose to share only THAT album on the device. Or if Timmy wants to watch Lego Movie that his dad bought on his account, but his dad doesn't want him to be able to access the other movies he's bought like Clockwork Orange, he can choose to only share THAT item. This could even be extended to 3rd-party apps such as comic book readers or Kindle.

Account types
As far as accounts, there are 3 major types. Regular, Restricted, and Junior. Regular is exactly what you think - unrestricted access to settings and apps. Restricted presents the standard iOS interface but with integrated parental controls including time limits and activity reports. You can do everything the current parental controls on iOS can do but it's made more accessible and easier to use and is tied to the main account's iCloud OR can be tied to the accounts that belong to the parent.

(added 7/8/2014) Touch ID is a feature that could be utilized, provided future devices support it. Touch ID could be used in one of two ways - The first method would be that Touch ID can automatically switch accounts. So if Ed is logged in, and Jim hits the home button with Touch ID, the account automatically switches and logs him in.

The second thing Touch ID could do would be to allow Continuity for answering phone calls. For example, if Mariah is logged in and James gets a phone call, he can use Touch ID to automatically answer the call. Thanks to haikuandhoney from reddit for the idea!



Junior would be a new addition that would also be added to Mac OS X designed for younger kids in elementary school and preschool. It would use large fonts and utilize Siri to create a fun, personal connection to the child. It would allow the parent to pick and choose which apps the kid could use and would also make smart recommendations on what apps the device thinks could help the kid. There would be avatar powered by Siri that the child could customize, and developers could even add in rewards into their educational apps that can unlock things like clothing for the avatar or background materials. There would be very minimal settings that would let the child do things such as choose a color scheme or change brightness and volume, but would lock down things such as the web browser, messages and email, FaceTime, non-approved apps, and major system settings. The avatar would also guide them through their games and educational apps and let them know things such as when it's time to give the iPad back to their parents. Parents could also choose to set "goals" for their kids and they could be rewarded as well. Goals could include "do x educational app for 20 minutes" or something basic, and 3rd party developers could add goals for parents to set up. For example an app designed to help the kid learn addition could have a goal made by the developer to do x amount of addition problems in a certain amount of time and they can be rewarded for completing it, or try again in an hour/tomorrow/next week, etc. The camera would also be accessible but there would be no sharing options. The parent account can access all photos taken via the Junior account on their account.

iCloud sync
Each account would also sync information via iCloud and keep that data separated. For example, if Mom has a MacBook Air and an iPhone, Dad has a Macbook Pro and an iPhone, and the kids share a Mac mini and both the kids have iPod touches, and each person has their own iCloud account, each individual account syncs to that iPad. So when Dad goes to pick up the iPad and logs into his user account, his messages and emails are available, he's automatically signed into his apps via iCloud keychain, and his iCloud photos and documents are ready to go. When Mom goes to switch accounts, on her account only HER iCloud information appears.

Handoff, Continuity and Notifications
As far as Handoff is concerned, if the current active iPad user is able to use handoff, the icon will appear as normal. However, if Jeff is logged in, but Alex is on her Mac, then her icon along with a "!" or "->" or possibly a smaller version of the app icon appears. Tapping on that allows her to switch to her account and use Handoff.

For Continuity, everything is handled through iCloud. So if Art signs in on his account, his text messages are available in Messages and if he gets a call he's able to answer it on the iPad. If Sarah is logged into her account and Art gets a phone call or text message, the iPad will not be able to answer the call. Call answering will ONLY be available for the current active account and will not work on the lock screen at all UNLESS the user gives specific permission to allow call answering on the lock screen. Text messages for individual accounts will still produce notifications.

On to notifications, during usage only the current active account will receive notifications. However, thanks to iCloud, any notifications sent to the iPad, even iPad-specific notifications, will show up on the owner's other devices signed into iCloud, including Macs. However, at the lock screen, if an account gets a notification an all new notification manager appears, with a layout similar to the notification center currently. The current active account is always displayed first, but is always collapsable. If another account gets a notification, the list expands similar to Notification center. The name of the account as well as their account picture would have a darker background (similar to the background given to the title of an app in Notification center) and their notifications would be listed below. Only the active account user can interact with their own notifications, i.e. if User 1 is the active user and user 2 gets a notification, User 1 cannot interact with that notification in any way until they switch to user 2's account. Users may also have the option to not have their name show up in the notification list, in which case when they swipe to access the users, a simple number will display next to their name to indicate how many notifications they have.

Alternatively, notifications for other accounts could be indicated by Handoff-like icons in the corner.





Settings and Open apps
Certain settings, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular & Data, Usage settings, and other critical system settings will be universal and each account can actively change them (unless the account is restricted with the controls disabled or a Junior account). However almost every other setting will be tied to the user and can change.

As far as apps that the user already has open, on devices that support it (i.e. an iPad with 4GB of RAM), the apps will be ready and instant upon opening with no need to wait for refresh. This can be turned off if users so choose, in which case a simple image would be taken and saved, however this would require a short wait period for the app to reload.

This is a basic outline of what I envision. When I get the chance I plan on updating this post with GUI mockups. I'll probably do hand-drawn ones tomorrow to help better illustrate what I'm talking about, but until then can I get some feedback on my ideas. Things you like? Things you hate? Things that work great? Things that don't work at all? Let me know!

 

I'm going ahead and editing the post with a few very rough outlines of the lock screen notification and user switcher.

My goal is to edit the design to create a look of what it could be like in iOS (and if anyone's interested in helping, be my guest )

I'll get sketches of the other elements and components later.

 

First update to the OP! (7/8/14)

Someone on Reddit gave me a suggestion to use touchID for answering phone calls, and I took it one step further to also allow it for user switching, so I've added that into the post.

I've also created several new sketches to help better represent my concept and I've made the post more streamlined.

 

That's great! That's basically how I was picturing it in my head!

 

It would be an iPad only thing.

 

That's not bad but it might be taxing on the battery, or if you're in a dark/poor lighting area.

 

But many people are sharing iPads. I think I should clarify this is an iPad-only feature. As more and more people replace their computers with iPads and as more and more families buy iPads this idea becomes more and more plausible.