Hacker News Reader

Comment by m4r71n | Hacker News Reader

I have the opposite use case where I need to have two Signal accounts on a single phone. Having Molly alongside the official Signal app was always the solution, but I wish Signal would allow switching between profiles, or Android would allow arbitrary user accounts (I don't really want to add Signal to my work profile).

View on HN

Android 15+ has Private Space which is basically an additional work profile but managed by the system and not a third party app.

https://support.google.com/android/answer/15341885?hl=en

Which is a massive pain to use for stuff like this, and it explicitly recommends against using it with apps that use notifications when you enable it. It shuts down constantly, like as soon as your phone locks (at least for me), and won't process push notifications until the space is opened again.

I really don't get why they don't just give you a thing to install something as many times as you want. It's insane that you still have to use these weird workarounds.

You can configure the private space to lock when: - Every time device locks (default) - 5 minutes after screen timeout - Only after device restarts

The last option would work just fine for you

Given all the commentary it's very clear you don't understand and have taken zero time to enlighten yourself on Private Spaces.

You do realize you can still create a work profile through things like Insular/Island, right?

It's insane people complain about these things when they're legitimately non-issues

I've used work profiles too. Together, that gives you a total of three installs of an app, all with strange (and different) interactions and limitations between them. All of which is quite different than you'd expect for a "let me have two of this app" feature (because it isn't one, though it's frequently propped up like it is).

Again, you're confirming that you don't understand the features. First you complain about Private Spaces locking, and now you're legitimately complaining about having to install an app twice? A) you don't and B) the segmentation is the entire point.

No... I'm saying that they don't let me install it an arbitrary number of times, and none of them are "normal" additional installs. They come with weird restrictions and extra complications that are wholly undesirable for many situations.

Those restrictions can exist too, and e.g. work profiles are obviously useful. But it's strange that we don't have an option that isn't restricted like that.

Android work profiles allow you to run multiple isolated copies in parallel - with separate address book and all. Works very well for Signal. I wish there was something similar for iOS.

There are some tools available to make management even more straightforward, like Insular, a fork of Island: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.oasisfeng.island.fdroid/

Beeper allows multiple accounts from various apps in one chat app FYI

I believe you can use Samsung secure folder to do something like this, I haven’t quite tried it yet though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com