
Cover is joining Twitter - mikeevans
http://blog.coverscreen.com/post/81998756366/cover-is-joining-twitter
======
GuiA
_" For now, Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our
attention on our work at Twitter. If that changes down the road, we’ll provide
another update here."_

tl;dr: Cover will die a slow, unmaintained death while the former Cover
employees work on completely unrelated Twitter projects. Oh well.

~~~
ggreer
This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible
sunset pledge[1]. The pledge should contain something along the lines of, "If
we shut down, we will make it possible to run an instance of our product."
That means open-sourcing server code, writing some minimal docs, and probably
building some data export APIs.

I had the idea before starting Floobits (YC S13 yadda yadda), and of course,
we've made a pledge:
[https://floobits.com/pledge](https://floobits.com/pledge)

This helps the company as well as customers. People are more likely to adopt
your product when they know you'll give them the source code if your company
dies.

It's helped in subtle ways that I didn't predict. For example: If I ever think
of taking shortcuts or building embarrassingly bad software, I remember that
the public will likely see this code one day.

If you run a company, consider making a responsible sunset pledge. If you use
a SaaS tool, consider asking that company to make one.

1\. [http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-
sunse...](http://geoff.greer.fm/2012/09/19/a-responsible-product-sunset-
pledge/)

~~~
nl
_This is yet another example of why all startups should have a responsible
sunset pledge_

Why, exactly?

This probably won't be a popular view on HN, but I think a lot of people
complain about companies shutting things down for the sake of complaining.

Cover was a free, beta application with a very limited number of users. There
was no personal data saved by it and no future plans announced. For those
users Cover will continue to work today like it did yesterday. And yet the top
voted comment is complaining about it being shutdown. Pfft!

In general, customers want a supported product (eg, the endless complaints
about every single startup bought by a larger company, even when they
completely open source their product).

In most cases a pledge like this puts extra restrictions on what a startup can
do. I'm not saying screw over your customers if you get bought, but making a
pledge is completely different to building some kind of data export facility
if it ends up being needed. Why take on challenges that you don't need?

In _some_ cases (typically enterprise focused) some kind of business
continuity plan is absolutely appropriate. In many consumer-focused app start
ups? Not so much.

~~~
funkyy
Exactly. The thing is that they offered FREE service. They made no money from
it (at least that's how this appears). They didn't shut down the app, they
didn't just close the whole thing. They gave users fair few months to move to
another service. Even if it sucks that such quality app/startup will be
probably gone soon, its still much better than just shut things and run.

------
jboynyc
A trope that refuses to die: "It’s been an incredible journey".

~~~
colinbartlett
[http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

~~~
bentcorner
I feel like the only reasonable response to this is open data standards and
self hosting.

------
nilkn
This is really disappointing news if this acquisition goes the way it's
sounding. Cover was a great app and one of the reasons to use Android over iOS
(along with Link Bubble, etc.).

At the least, if it gets pulled or falls into abandon, that's opportunity for
someone else to fill the spot. There are obvious ways to improve Cover (like
picking a time interval for it to default to Work mode--it is pretty bad at
detecting Work mode in general IME). It would also be nice if you could
customize the number of apps that show up in the app switcher (mainly useful
on large devices like a Note 3).

~~~
amiramir
As someone who had recently had to switch to an Android phone (Note3) I'd love
to know of other apps beyond cover and Link Bubble that you like. Can you
please expand on the "etc." in your first paragraph.

~~~
cageface
SwiftKey and Nova Launcher would be near the top of my list.

------
k-mcgrady
Damn. This was one of the few apps that made me prefer Android over iOS. It's
highly likely it's now going to die (the only thing Twitter gains from this is
the team, the app has no relevance to them). It also probably means my one
major annoyance with the app won't be fixed. It changes to work settings based
on location but I work from home. Was hoping they would add a setting to set
it to work between certain hours.

~~~
unreal37
Can't you toggle between work and home manually, using a volume key?

~~~
k-mcgrady
Not sure about the volume key but you can toggle manually. That kind of
defeats the purpose a bit though. One of the draws is that it does these
things automatically.

------
minimaxir
An acquihire for a startup which had received $1.7M investment is probably not
a great success.

~~~
unreal37
Don't the original investors usually get their investment back from these
things? So Twitter pays the investors $1.7M and pays the founders $200K per
year as a dev team.

How does that usually work?

~~~
jmathai
I think the parent was inferring that recouping $1.7M isn't viewed as a
success for a VC.

In general I think acquihires are moderate successes for the founders. Not
just financially but external validation of their collective skills as a team.

~~~
paulbaumgart
Yeah, that's pretty much the value of a talent acquisition the founders:
enough cash and credibility to make things go a lot faster the next time
around.

------
akramhussein
Such a shame. After owning an iPhone for since the first launch, I recently
bought a Nexus 5. Cover was one of the first apps I downloaded that showed me
the power of Android. Effectively doing what you want with the OS. I wasn't
oblivious to it, but here was a nice approach to make my life just that tad
bit easier. I showed a lot of friends and they were all impressed. Felt like
maybe something that should be baked in Android. Unfortunately, after 2-3
weeks of usage, I gave up after it wouldn't reliably switch home to car or car
to work and found I needed to intervene a lot more than I would have liked to.
However, I was hopeful this would be smoothed out...guess not now.

------
pvnick
I see a lot of undeserved negativity here for what I'm sure is an exciting
time for the Cover guys. Let's not piss on their parade. I say
congratulations, I hope you guys made a bit of cash, had a lot of fun, and I
hope you enjoy working on interesting projects at Twitter!

~~~
yukichan
An acquihire is not a success it's a failure, and instead of being excited,
I'm sure the feeling is more like being resigned to at least having a place to
go after closing the doors. It's sad too because their product is ace.

~~~
pvnick
You have no idea how they feel about their acquisition and to project your
negativity on their situation is a mean thing to do. For all you know they
could be popping champagne bottles and eating chicken wings and you're being a
debbie downer.

Edit: [http://i.imgur.com/ewXHcbp.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ewXHcbp.jpg)

~~~
yukichan
I don't know how they feel but if they're popping champaign bottles after
abandoning their product and their users then I don't give a shit how they
feel.

I do understand the situation better than most however because I've been there
in a startup when the end is there and you're faced with acquisition to hire
talent or closing the doors. You face it every day as time runs out and your
runway shrinks. You face it a thousand times until you finally make a decision
you were avoiding for a long time. It's not fun. So if these guys are happy
it's probably because a weight has been lifted of their chest, not because
they succeeded.

~~~
spigoon
Without knowing the founders' goal when they set out how can you reasonably
conclude that they failed? They built a product that was enjoyed by thousands
of users. I'd say they succeeded.

------
mkr-hn
Can someone explain what it is/was? This is the first I've heard of it, and
the site doesn't appear to have a description. Google's app store is returning
a million apps with the word "cover," and none appear to be this.

------
caiob
I fail to understand why people congratulate the founders for selling out
their startups.

~~~
mscarborough
Because it's kinda the point?

~~~
caiob
The point is to build a product and sell it to a giant? ok, then.

------
ExpendableGuy
Bummer. I really liked Cover.

Based on "Cover will remain available in the Play Store while we focus our
attention on our work at Twitter," it's unlikely that it will receive updates,
and may get pulled altogether soon.

------
sirkneeland
If Cover gets pulled, I hope some people take a break from making Flappy
clones and 2048 clones to make a Cover clone.

Cover is (was?) a phenomenal addition to my Android experience.

~~~
kul
Hi, I'm curious to know how it augmented your Android experience?

~~~
sirkneeland
It was very useful for me to be able to go right from the lockscreen to the
app i wanted without the intermediary step of going to the launcher.

It was also very useful how i could just drag a bit on an icon and get a peek
of what the app is doing.

It was also useful how from any screen I could drag from the upper-right and
get a sort of alt-tab list of recent apps that involved less tapping around
than hitting the Android multitasking button and then which running app i
wanted.

------
funkyy
I must say that Cover could go long road to a medium sized company instead of
selling. IMO they sold out way to early. The product was great, it looks like
they followed Startup spirit and really invested in this. The concept is also
pretty nice and they had huge user base. Endless ways to monetize. Unless they
got really good deal this transaction could be premature...

------
natrius
If you're looking for a similar replacement, I like Aviate. Yahoo bought them,
but they're still developing the app.

~~~
pnachbaur
I actually hadn't been using Cover, but I'm a big fan of Aviate. I greatly
prefer it over the stock/Samsung experience.

------
Infinitesimus
Well, I guess we're gonna have an app in the playstore that does the same
thing within a week then...

------
Colter
I really don't connect with the "build a business to sell out" mentality.
Cheapens the whole idea of entrepreneurship and self made independence. Maybe
it's just me.

~~~
mscarborough
It's all the same thing in my mind. Build a business with the idea of selling
out to some big corp, or to sell to as many customers as you can. Either way,
you're going to be beholden to someone else. I don't begrudge these folks
whatsoever.

------
sirkneeland
As someone put it succinctly in the comments on the Verge:

"Sparrowed!"

(I am imagining it being said in the Strongbad/Teen Girl Squad "Arrow'd!!"
voice)

------
NicoJuicy
Cover is actually good, i use it (just like Aviate) and some people asked me
how i did that on my Android.

To bad it's going to die :(

------
leonhuu007
Congrats Boys!!!

------
hlafshusfad
RIP

------
tf1
Adenda would have been a better choice. They turn any app into a lock screen
app [http://www.adendamedia.com/](http://www.adendamedia.com/)

------
drdaeman
Never heard of them before. Seems neat, but I was curious about need for so
many permissions for a lockscreen and task switching app.

(Several minutes later) Installed it. It fired bunch of network connections
right at the startup and doesn't even worked without registering with some
cloud service telling me it needs one to just "install" (like I didn't install
it already). I really don't get why such app would need cloud junk except for
spying^W metadata analysis and/or advertising. Oh, right, an important feature
to back up the fact I browse HN in the morning should work as an excuse.

Guess, nothing of value was lost, then.

