Switch User Profiles on Android Jelly Bean

Smartphones these day are becoming an alternative for desktop computers. With stable and constantly updated OS like Android and iOS that get new features and apps that can perform almost every function that a computer does has definitely made them a favorite choice for users. On the other hand, one feature that seemed to be missing from each of these operating systems is the ability to have multiple user accounts. However, with the release of the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS, there seems to be a hope for all this to change.

Recent reports pointed out to hidden codes in the latest Android 4.1 Jelly Bean can possibly allow multiple users on an Android device. That implied that an Android device could work like a desktop PC that has multiple user accounts. As the coding was already completed in Jelly Bean, XDA member zanderman112 has written a tutorial for users to benefit from this cool feature from Android.

The process isn’t difficult and all it requires is that the device should be rooted and a Terminal Emulator app should be installed. Once done, type in the following in the Teriminal Emulator apps:
su
pm create-user test

The second account created in this example is named test but you can name it whatever you choose to. Once typed and entered, hit the power button until the boot menu pops up and you should be able to switch to the second profile. The second profile is limited compared to the original profile and the limitations can be best seen in the settings menu. From the original thread over at XDA:

At the moment, this isn’t extremely usable, ie texts from the primary user’s still show in the 2nd test account. But, with the right launcher installed, and hiding the apps from the drawer on the 2nd account, this can still be usable in its current form.

My suggestions:
1.) Label the 2nd user Guest
2.) Use Nova or Apex as the launcher for the Guest user, and hide all of the apps you want(texts, social media, email, etc) from the app drawer.
3.) Setup a security lockscreen on the primary user to prevent Guests from gaining access(each user has different lockscreen settings)

For now, this is just something cool and worth having for fun’s sake but hopefully we will see more advancements in this regard and fully working multiple user accounts on Android device will be a function making it unique and distinct from other mobile OS. Stay tuned as we bring to you more Android and Jelly Bean related news.

Here is a video of it:

Via