It looks like Apple is finally working on a feature that has been there in Android smartphones since years. The company has been granted a new patent that is titled “Provision of domains in secure enclave to support multiple users.” What this means is that the iPhone maker is developing its secure enclave technology that can allow multiple users to share one iPhone or iPad, without revealing their private information to other users. In short, it means multiple user support user account support in iOS.
The patent doesn’t particularly mention about iOS or any other OS version, reports Appleinsider.
In the patent, the company even refers to both “single user mobile computing devices and multi user laptop and desktop computing devices.”
It is worth mentioning that macOS already has the support for multiple users. However, the patent might indicate that this feature could primarily be for iPhones.
“A computing device can employ several pass codes and associated encryption keys, where multiple pass codes, or encryptions keys may be associated with each different user account on the system,” said the patent.
From the patent, it looks like Apple is trying to solve the problem wherein every user would need to have the personal information, from logins to Apple Pay details secured, while using certain shared features such as the web browser.
Apple has also talked about a Secure Enclave Processor or SEP, which seems to be the future version of the T2 security chip that we find in Mac devices. And this processor might show up in iPhones as well in future.
Also mentioned is that the tech can deliberately slow down the process of reaching multiple failed logon attempts, after which you usually get logged out.
“Passcode throttling can be enabled some single-user mobile computing devices, such as smartphone or tablet computing devices,” it says, “to limit the rate in which an unauthorized user can attempt to enter incorrect passcodes.”
The patent says that the “rate of passcode entry can also be throttled after the predetermined number of incorrect authentication attempts.” The benefits of this can be that it can prevent accidental lockout and can also frustrate the malicious attacker while performing a brute force passcode attack.
