[thaumasiotes]

> iPad is essentially useless as a shared family device - the UX of switching accounts inside apps is just terrible.

What does "multiuser" mean to you? The traditional home PC was shared by everyone in the family, all using the same account. What do you accomplish by running multiple accounts on the iPad?

[ClumsyPilot]

> all using the same account.

not in my family. You only do this if they don't know how to create an account.

Previously PCs contained no personal data - maybe some school work, a few documents and a hidden porn collection .

Nowadays there is all of your messages, bank apps and photos you dont want your parents to see

[ehsankia]

> all using the same account

Never heard of this. Anyone I knew back in the days with a home PC always had an account for each family member. Multi account on PC is a long solved problem. Not sure why iPad still hasn't solved it after over a decade.

[mixmastamyk]

GP is probably older and remembers the more primitive home OS from DOS to Win98 and MacOS System N which didn’t have accounts.

[foverzar]

> What does "multiuser" mean to you?

It means separate app data, so I don't have to tediously re-login in spotify, messengers etc.

> The traditional home PC was shared by everyone in the family, all using the same account.

Not really and even if so, the separation of concerns is much easier. For traditional PC I can get by with a separate browser profile.

For mobile OS with mobile apps, each having an account or personalisation features, it's just non-usable.

[tomjen3]

Stop downvoting OP because you don't remember PCs before 2000/XP. Those either didn't have different users or, in the case of windows 95 and 98, they were essentially pointless.

For the record: I don't remember my family having different accounts on our home computer as a kid.

[foverzar]

Traditional computers persisted decades after windows 95, so it's a really bad point of reference.

And PCs even nowadays don't have so many installed apps that require login, unlike mobile OS apps.

[theshrike79]

Windows didn't properly support multi-users before Windows 10 anyway.

Properly as in "even my mom can use it". You could do it in earlier versions, but the UX wasn't exactly smooth if you had multiple users you needed to switch between.

[foverzar]

I remember it differently. We had a family PC on WinXP with multiuser setup, and I hardly remember any issues.

[iakov]

Um, what? User switching in Windows 10 works exactly like it worked in 7, where it worked exactly like it worked in XP. Start -> Log Out -> Select another user and log in. Am I misremembering?

[kalleboo]

Even MacOS 9 supported multiple user accounts