For years, Google has had very good support for working on multiple profiles within a single device, ie “multi-profile” support. A great thing for anyone sharing their device with one or more people. However, this feature within Android operating systems has remained unchanged for a long time, probably because Google was guided by the idea of ”If it works, do not touch.”
Now things seem to be changing with the advent of the Android 13 operating system. The second “Developer Preview” of the Android 13 operating system was released last week and with it several experimental improvements related to support for the use of the same mobile device with multiple user profiles.
According to XDA-Developers, the most noticeable change is that in the new version of Android there is a profile selector in the status bar when “flag_user_switcher_chip” is enabled in SystemUI within Android 13. Touching this part of the screen displays a list of all profiles currently present on one device.
Another potential change that could occur in the final version of the Android 13 operating system is the menu for changing the active user profile that extends across the entire screen, ie “full-screen profile switcher”. This functionality is most likely intended for mobile devices that have a larger screen, such as tablets. This feature within Android 13 OS can be accessed by typing “config_enableFullscreenUserSwitcher” within SystemUI.
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Also, new settings for creating user profiles have been noticed, with the option to assign different colors to different profiles, which would be displayed for those users who do not want to upload a profile photo. Lastly, there’s even the option to select a user profile from the lock screen, a feature Google has been testing since the first “Developer Preview” version for Android 13.
For now, it is not known whether this functionality will be introduced when the final version of the Android 13 operating system appears, or whether Google will save this setting for one of the next versions of Android. On the other hand, it is possible that this function is intended only for those mobile devices that have larger screens that are traditionally used by several users within one household.
