According to AppleInsider, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has acknowledged users’ desires to have its iPad support numerous users on one tablet. The company’s engineering team is supposedly investigating the issue.
The news came after a developer received a response from Apple to his bug report. Apple’s Bug Reporter has an option for submissions that aren’t related to a bug but instead to offer a suggestion.
In this instance, the developer asked that the company include support for numerous users an on one iPad.
Here’s the “official” response from the Apple Developer Connection’s Worldwide Developer Relations team, “After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering.”
The unnamed developer said Apple’s Bug Reporter has been used before as forum to submit requests for new features. This time is different as Apple had replied to his submission.
But with Apple’s response, it’s not the first instance that the company is working toward making the iPad for multi-owners.
Back in 2010, prior to iPad’s official announcement, The Wall Street Journal wrote a story that an early prototype of the tablet had been designed with the intent to be shared and customized for family members. Sounds like a mini-PC?
It had been a focus early on in the tablet’s development and one idea the company supposedly reviewed was the capacity for iPad users to put virtual sticky notes on it for other users after they started using the device.
Another feature the company has looked at was enabling the iPad to identify individuals from a forward facing camera in the device. The 2010 report, according to AppleInsider, noted it was “unclear” whether the features would be there when it launched.
In the end, the suggested features have not been included in the last three iPad versions.
Looking ahead to other features that Apple may explore is facial recognition. This has been part of Apple’s patent applications for multi-user support on their iOS devices. AppleInsider talked about this in a December story. It discussed a system that could recognize a user and then change the model to accommodate their selected features such as applications, settings and wallpaper.
What will be next? An app for the iPhone to use on the iPad?
