SwitchMe brings multiple user profiles to (rooted) Android phones and tablets. Thanks to application developer Fahrbot Mobile, Switch Me will provide something that roughly resembles Window’s famed—and sometimes hated—user accounts, but for your Android phone.
Fahrbot Mobile is already a famous name among Android users courtesy of some very fine apps such asCall Master, Screenshot ER2 and Undelete. The renowned team is back with yet another remarkable app called SwitchMe that lets you create multiple user profiles on Android, each with a different set of system settings, user accounts and apps, and switch between with a couple of taps. The app seems to be inspired from the multiple user accounts feature that has been available to desktop users for quite some time now. By creating multiple user profiles on the same operating system (or ROM), you can use any one as your default profile, whereas other account(s) can be used for testing purposes, or simply, as a guest account. SwitchMe currently works only on rooted devices. Read on to find out more.
You might want to take a look at our comprehensive collection of root guides if you are yet to gain root access on your Android device.
The idea is pretty simple: install SwitchMe on your main profile, then use it to define more profiles and manually reboot into them. The only thing you’ll be missing while in a secondary profile is storage space: the apps and cache from multiple profiles don’t cross over, and are isolated onto different sections of flash storage. This could make things tight, especially if your phone or tablet has less that 8GB of space available and/or you store a lot of games, music or video.
SwitchMe is definitely for advanced users: root access is necessary to set up the different storage areas, and even the developer Fahrbot Mobile recommends performing a Nandroid backup before using it. Ouch. That said, for the tech-savvy among you who wants to share your device with your kids or significant other, this seems like a pretty in-depth solution that’s much cheaper than buying a second chuck of Android hardware. Just clean off all your gigantic game files before trying it out and you’ll be set.
As mentioned above, root privileges are necessary for the operation of SwitchMe due to the required set up of different storage areas. This application may not be for the feint hearted amongst us, as even the developer recommends performing a full Nandroid backup before using the software. SwitchMe is available as a free download from the Android Market with a premium key being charged at $1.98 and root privileges being a pre-requisite of use.
All that said, this app is really cool. The basic tenant of the app is to allow you to have multiple installations of Android on one device. You must use the same ROM for all of them, but there are still many possible benefits. For example, what happens when one of your office “friends” asks to borrow your phone, but you’d really rather they not have access to, say, your personal vacation photos? SwitchMe solves that issue.
If you’re a developer who wants a clean slate sandbox to play with, a gamer who wants a completely stripped down installation for gaming, or somebody who once in a while needs to squeeze all the battery life possible out of their device, SwitchMe turns your single device into two… or three, or four. And if you’re a one-smartphone family, this is a quick way to keep the kids’ games from clogging up your front menu.
If you’re sold, hit up the Android Market source to download. It’s free for up to two profiles, after that you will need to fork up $1.98. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to send the developer a thank you tip regardless.
[Android Market via Engadget]
