Jun 152011
 

.. or to give them the more popular name, tablets.

What is the one thing all slates (whatever the usual choice of operating system) are missing? Support for multiple users.

Whilst there have been and are slates based on desktop operating systems, the only ones that have gained any level of popularity are based around operating systems for mobile phones – principally iOS and Android. And for some reason, these do not have support for multiple users which is sort of understandable for mobile phones but it is definitely a weakness for slates.

Imagine if you will, that you have bought a slate and setup the details for your work email, and are busily exchanging emails with someone who insists on being called “Bubbles” and you are engaged in a bit of harmless flirtation. Now you plonk your slate down on the coffee table, and your partner picks it up to play with; of course they end up looking at your latest email from “Bubbles”.

Or in the morning, you rescue your slate from the resident teenager wandering around the house under an angry cloud. You’re in a hurry and don’t check the slate until you wire it up to a projector to show those figures you were working on last night. And this is when you discover (to the amusement of the collective senior managers) that your pet teenager has replaced the default background image with an image of their favourite teenage idol in a scantily clad pose.

Now both of those examples were extreme and intentionally a bit humorous, but the problem is genuine. Even if you are single and excessively possessive about your slate, having a user called “work” and another called “play” allows you to hide one activity from the other. Not a bad idea to keep the games hidden from your boss!

Add a “demo” user and you can hand your slate to a fellow worker or friend to let them have a look at your slate without the risk of them discovering something they shouldn’t.

The mistake the manufacturers have made is assuming that a slate is a single user device. In practice, everyone wants a go and unless you have really big pockets and carry it around everywhere with you, people will pick it up and use it. The ‘net is full of stories about geeks who bought a slate, and wound up with their partner using it more than they do. And not always through choice!

It appears that I’m not the only one who thinks this would be a really good feature.