Nokia-patent spænder ben for multi-bruger understøttelse

Muligheden for at have flere brugerkonti på samme Android-enhed har været længe ventet, især på tablets. Da Google præsenterede Android 4.2 stod det klart, at Android endelig ville understøtte sådan en funktion.

Det lader dog til at funktionen kun vil blive tilgængelig på tablets med Android 4.2. I første omgang er det kun Nexus 10, der får funktionen. Smartphones med den seneste Android-version – hvilket i skrivende stund kun er Nexus 4 – kommer ikke til at få funktionen.

Årsagen til dette har angiveligt ikke noget med softwarebegrænsninger at gøre. Det skulle i stedet være et Nokia-patent fra 2005, der giver dem eksklusiv ret til en sådan funktion i smarte mobiltelefoner, skriver hjemmesiden Phone Arena.

Patentet har navnet "Multi-user mobile telephone" og vi kan bl.a. læse følgende om det:

"A mobile telephone is designed to be used by several different end-users at different times. A first end-user can alter the mobile telephone so that it operates in a manner specific to that first end-user and a subsequent end-user can alter the mobile telephone so that it operates in a manner specific to that subsequent end-user; each end-user has only to respond to prompts displayed on a screen in order to alter the mobile telephone so that it operates in a manner specific to that end-user."

Endvidere skriver Nokia:

"The present invention therefore moves away from the established assumption that a mobile telephone is personal to a single end-user and instead readily allows the mobile telephone to be used by several end-users through appropriate on-screen prompts. Such a device may be especially relevant to communities where few individuals can afford the cost of their own personal telephone. More generally, it is useful for any entity to whom there are benefits from being able to easily share mobile telephones across multiple end-users (e.g. large corporation may have a pool of such mobile telephones; any employee can then simply pick up one of these telephones and be able to use it like a personal device)."