Is it a good idea to have multiple-users?

[bettybarnes]

Hello, is it a good idea to include multi-users in my Android application? What are the benefits of having a multi-users over single-user? Is single-user the convention for mobile apps? Please I need ideas because I'm currently developing an Android application. But my adviser told me to have multi-users in my application but as I see it, I think it's not that appropriate to include it because mobile applications can only be used by the phone owners.

[peter_budo]

Well if you look on mobile phone as personal device used solelly by you then it is obviously only single user.

However if you look on phone as device provided by company for company related activities (sale, stock check, tasking) it often gets shared by number of users. At the moment we are building and application for building site managers where single device is used by multiple users with different permissions to what they can do. Therefore login for multiple users is required, example simple list of users associated with project/device where they select name from the list and have to provide valid password that is send to server in hashed format.

PS: Not sure about relation between you, advisor and project. If you are employee tasked with building an app you should speak with supervisor to discuss his views on application use so you have better understanding.

[bettybarnes]

Uhm to be clear, I'm a student and currently developing my thesis project, my adviser asked me why my app is only for one user, I told him that my application is only associated with a single user and custom tailored for personal use. He then responded it's not a good idea. I'm wondering why he said that.

[peter_budo]

What does your application do? You do not need to go in details, just general info should be enough.

[bettybarnes]

Okay,my application is about health and fitness, and delimited only for particular group of people. It gives a nutritio facts of fruits, vegies, etc. It also stores user's food, tracks user's sleep. Those are some of the functionality of the application I'm currently developing.

[peter_budo]

Then reasonable multi-user could be compare stats, like how much 2 people run in same months etc. Do research on it and present it to your teacher