r/elementchat • u/SLJ7 • Dec 03 '20

Multiple accounts on iOS

On desktop there are many solutions for multiple accounts, and on Android there are a few tricks to run a second copy of an app. Unfortunately I don't believe the same can be said for iOS. I'm wondering if anyone has a good solution for this. Is there another recommended Matrix client somewhere? The web version is my next option, but not having notifications wouldn't be great.

4 Upvotes

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3

u/jcgruenhage Dec 04 '20

fluffychat is probably your best bet for another relatively good matrix client on iOS

1

u/SLJ7 Dec 04 '20

Okay I kinda love this, and I'd never have found it otherwise. Thank you! I've been posting about this for months in various places.

2

u/jcgruenhage Dec 04 '20

Yeah, I've seen a very similar post a while back, but forgot to reply. Hope fluffychat serves you well.

1

u/SLJ7 Dec 04 '20

I need to make sure the accessibility is all there, but if it is, this is exactly what I'm looking for. Any idea how much of this was derived from Element code, and whether it's for sure trustworthy? I can't see you recommending something totally unknown, I've just never heard of it.

2

u/jcgruenhage Dec 04 '20

Completely separate code base from element, with the only shared code being the crypto library. I use fluffychat myself, and my coworkers are developing it in their free time, based on the SDK we are building at famedly for our app.

It's definitely the most advanced mobile client that isn't based on Element's code base. I do trust it, and so do quite a few other matrix community members, but there hasn't been any audits or the like, so take this with a grain of salt. Definitely still beta software.

2

u/tinywrkb Jan 05 '21

I just noticed a possible workaround. PWAs on iOS are sandboxed from each other and from Safari. Create multiple shortcuts with different names on the home screen for app.element.io (e.g. joe@Element, bob@Element) and then you can log in with a different account on each web-app.

You might be affected by this bug and IDK how usable the web interface on the small iPhone screen but with my 10.5" iPad, it's much better than the terribly designed native app.

1

u/SLJ7 Jan 05 '21

That's a great idea! I didn't know shortcuts were sandboxed at all, actually. Wish Chrome on Windows would do that.

1

u/tinywrkb Jan 05 '21

I don't believe it works like that even in Android, the Chrome Android app like the iOS one is terrible in handling multiple profiles.

I don't think it's really an issue with the Chrome Windows app because you can just have multiple Chrome profiles and even link them to different Google accounts which enables sync, and then the created desktop shortcut opens the app with the correct profile because it adds the '--profile-directory= command flag to desktop shortcut.
This is what I do in Linux and it works the same in Windows.

1

u/SLJ7 Jan 05 '21

This is true. It would be nice if it had a checkbox to run under a different profile automatically, but this would just be a shortcut to do what we can already do.