[Android Apps and Games] ftgg99:
SwitchMe - An Android first

Welcome to SwitchMe, an application for root users that allows you to log in and out of your device just as you would on a personal computer.

The technology behind SwitchMe saves all of your applications and data, protects it and stores it as a file in memory. You can then log out of

an account and log into a fresh installation of Android or another account with its own unique content.

You may create as many profiles as the memory is capable of holding. Some of these may require very little free memory because they contain

few apps, others will be larger as they contain many applications and lots of cache and data.

Why is this functionality useful?

Privacy - the most obvious benefit is that you can securely share one device among multiple users, which gives you privacy and peace of mind.

Testing - if you are a developer, you can use profiles as clean sandboxes to test your applications and their interaction with the system.

Speed - the games your kids play slow down your tablet, but with SwitchMe you can easily create profiles in without games or messengers.

Battery life - when the battery is low but there are important emails or documents to edit later, switch to a profile which only contains these essentials.

These of course are only suggestions - there are plenty of other uses for the functionality SwitchMe offers.

SwitchMe explained

In order to start using the application, you must create at least two profiles. The first you create will contain all your current data, the second will be a

fresh installation of the operating system.

Once you have created a second profile and booted into it, you will be presented with the Welcome screen, where you can add a new Google Account.

After you have set up your wireless connection and logged into the Google Account, you will find that SwitchMe comes preinstalled so that you can switch

back to the original account without needing to access the Market.

Advanced users can also clone their current profile - this can be useful if, for example, you want to see how the installation or removal of an application

affects your device.

Recommended usage

The most basic use for SwitchMe is creating multiple profiles for your family members. To do this, create separate profiles for yourself, for your significant

other and for the kids. Then log into these profiles and install the relevant software.

For your wife, for example, you can set up an email account and create bookmarks and widgets. For the kids, download and install some games.

From now on, handing your device over without worrying about them reading your emails or installing lots of junk is as simple as switching profiles.

Usage warning

Its very important to understand that incorrect use of this application can potentially harm your device. This can happen if you create and switch to

a profile that exceeds the available memory - switching into this profile will cause a boot loop as Android attempts to unsuccessfully build the Dalvik cache.

Before proceeding the use we recommend that you perform a full nandroid backup through recovery.

Looking forward

These are early days for SwitchMe, which means that a lot of additional functionality will be added to the app in the months to come. Planned features

include full profile encryption, profile storage on external memory and switching without the need to reboot your device.

We also plan to expand the information window to include data about each profile's applications, as well as the ability to reserve memory for profiles.

This Beta

The apk attached to this post will expire in 24 hours. Use that time to tell us if there are issues and to send logs (as always, with descriptions) via the

"Write to us" function.

Lots of functionality has been removed from this version, but will be added over the coming days.

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