Amazon Kindle's groundbreaking multi-user support

Amazon's new Kindle tablet may find favor with families with a new FreeTime feature that boast of multi-user support, a tech site reported.

 

CNET said the multi-user support restricts access to certain accounts —a boon for parents who let children use the tablet but not with full access.

 

"Think how commonplace this is for traditional personal computers. Mac or Windows, both platforms allow multiple people to use the same machine, logging in with different accounts that are linked to their own settings, data, applications and perhaps even special restrictions. But for tablets, it's been the dark ages," CNET's Danny Sullivan said.

 

Sullivan said this may be a game-changer for Amazon's Kindle Fire aside from the pricing, dual WiFi antennas and Dolby Digital Plus sound.

 

He added Amazon has taken a big step forward in improving things for families with Kindle FreeTime.

 

"It's not perfect. It's not even true account switching. But it's a good start, and one that I hope we'll see both Apple and Google follow with," he said.

 

FreeTime

 

FreeTime allows parents control over what their children can do on a Kindle Fire.

 

With the feature, each child can have his or her own profile, which has access only to the videos, books, games and apps that parents have selected.

 

FreeTime also allows parents to set time limits for how long the children can read books, play apps, watch videos or use the Kindle Fire.

 

"Kindle FreeTime is a good start toward this path, for tablets. Let's hope it keeps evolving on the Kindle Fire and spreads to other tablets (there are hints multi-account support is coming to Android), so that we can have user accounts like we're used to on our PCs and Macs," Sullivan said. — TJD, GMA News