OSX To Feature Portable User Accounts? 245
eldavojohn writes "A new patent filed by Apple is causing speculation that OSX is soon to receive a new feature. From the article: '[the patent states] that the user account may be stored alongside general data storage or "other functionality". All of which seems to suggest that at some time soon we may be able to load our user accounts onto an iPod, hard drive or USB keydrive and take them wherever we go.'"
Hmm...doesnt windows have this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm...doesnt windows have this? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Apple pulls this off, it will be seamless and invisible and mostly foolproof--three adjectives you'll never hear associated with roaming profiles.
Re:Impressive (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:[offtopic] Binary fun (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:[offtopic] Binary fun (Score:2, Insightful)
"So what is the third type? Those who think they can?"
That would be correct. And you are one of them.
0 - The unwashed masses that do not realise that you can have a yes/no value represented by one bit
1 - The clueful
10 - "Psuedonerds" that almost "get it"
11 - I can only guess "underwear gnomes with hot grits"
The joke should have been:
There are 1 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
(Boy that would drive the grammar nazis craaaazy!)
Re:[offtopic] Binary fun (Score:4, Insightful)
No no
There are indeed 10 types of people in the world:
0 - the geeks with 9 fingers who also counts 5 cans in a six-pack.
1 - the not-geek with 10 fingers
10 - the geeks with 10 fingers
From 2002? (Score:3, Insightful)
Inventors: Bowers; Robert T (Cupertino, CA), Ko; Steve (San Francisco, CA)
Assignee: Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA)
Appl. No.: 10/304,291
Filed: November 25, 2002
Maybe I don't know how to read these legal eagle documents and stuff, but it seems like this was filed some time ago. I don't think this has much bearing to 10.5 when this was filed when 10.2 was fresh on the shelves.
Re:Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
The feature was to appear back in 10.3, but was likely pulled because the hard drive based iPods of the day weren't having 100% stability with the hard drives inside. So it would be a bad idea to have your iPod carry around all your irreplacable data when there is a chance that just dropping the iPod could destroy it. Now Apple have significantly large flash based iPods (big enough to support a home directory.) So the idea is back on the table without the fear of randomly losing all your data from damage to the iPod.
In terms of the feature itself it carries your "keychain" and preferences with you, so operating on any mac will be the same experience as using it on your own mac at home. (Not just access to home directory files for example.) Additionally OSX already supports "live" encryption of the home directory, under the feature name of "FileVault". Which can be optionally enabled.
Of interest as well is that many users are already doing this, as you can already install your entire OS + home folders onto an iPod, then plug it into any mac and boot from it. (Contract graphic designers usually do this with the "daisy cutter" drives as they require no batteries/powersource.)
It won't be a DRM limitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe for movies the studios are demanding only the paying user can view on their iPod - so movie downloads will be tied to a user account on each device.
That seeems unlikely. They're already tied to an iTunes account (the kind that can be used on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods), so why also tie them to an OS X user account? I'm guessing that since Apple manage the former on their servers, it's a lot easier for them to keep track of what you're up to.
Re:Ultra portable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
A few sophisticated users have modified operation of existing operating systems, such as Mac OS X, to provide some portability to their user account from a work computer to a home computer. This requires specialized software tools to manipulate and modify the data structures for a user account in a database (e.g., netinfo database). Armed with such specialized tools, a very sophisticated user would first establish a local user account on the multi-user computer (work computer), and then use the specialized tools to edit the location of the default user directory, such that it is made to reside on an external storage device. Then, at the other location where a multi-user computer (home computer) is to be used by the same user, a user account would be again established on such a machine, and then using special tools to render the user identifier the same as that which the work computer used when creating the user account at the work computer.
So basically they say that prior art do exist. They even admit (in the fscking patent application!) "a few sophisticated users" have already done this, and now they want to steal that work and patent it. Isn't that great.
These modifications to the multi-user computers are not intended modifications and thus tend to compromise the reliability of the operation of the multi-user computers.
This would translate to "if something isn't invented by Apple it doesn't count as prior art".
Further, the required specialized tools, although available, are neither well documented nor user-friendly.
But they do exists, as you admit in your application. This looks like the kind of bullshit these companies puts in EULAs to make them stand up better against the laws, with the difference that this is a patent application and now it's used to stand up better to prior art.
Re:Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)