Cover Is An Android

You have more apps than you know what to do with, but Cover could fix that. It's an Android lockscreen replacement launching (invite-only) today that adapts to show your top productivity apps at work, favorite chill out apps at home, and driving apps in the car. With a $1.7 million seed led by First Round Capital, Cover is proud Android-first and -only, and could expose the inflexibility of iOS.

"Nows the time to be betting on Android" I'm excitedly told by lauded venture capitalist Josh Kopelman, who spearheaded First Round's investment in Cover. The startup's CEO Todd Jackson echoes Josh's passion for the open operating system. "The Android ecosystem and market is huge, yet every other startup goes iOS first. There are all these users used to getting things second and that sucks. There's a huge market opportunity. I really want Android users to say, 'Finally, a company building for Android first.'"

Cover couldn't work on any other OS. It leverages all the super powers of Android - replacing the lockscreen, knowing when you use your other apps, monitoring your sensors to determine what apps to bring up, and even modifying your ringer settings on the fly.

Below you can watch a quick demo of Cover and my interview with co-founder Jackson where he discusses iOS vs Android.

With Cover, Context Is King And Speed Is Queen

Once you sign up for a Cover invite and get one, the startup puts you in its beta tier and you'll see Cover in the Google Play Store. Once installed, it takes over your lockscreen, but leaves your homescreen launcher and all the customization you put into it intact. The only set up questions it asks are your work and home address.

Cover establishes a geo-fence around these locations and whenever you go there, the left side of your lockscreen shows a column of six of your apps that fit that situation. At first, these suggestions are crowdsourced, so you'll see popular business apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Asana at work, or Netflix, Kindle, and Facebook at home. With time, though, Cover learns your habits and personalizes itself to show your favorite apps for these occasions.

When you're outside these geo-fences, you'll see your on-the-go apps like Twitter and Facebook. Plug in your headphones and your music apps pop up. And If Cover detects accelerometer patterns that suggest you're in a car, it brings up Waze and Google Maps. When Jackson demo'd Cover for me, and manually brought up 'driving mode', Cover revealed Gmail for him. "Uh, oh" he said a little ashamed. "Red lights, dude."

Cover's "Peek" feature is the fastest way to open apps I've ever seen. Start pulling an app icon to the right and the lockscreen slides away to reveal the app's innards as if it was open all along. This makes it remarkably quick to check notifications in a slew of apps.

Cover's rapid app-switching lets you drag down from the top right corner of your phone at any time, even inside other apps, to reveal shortcuts to your most recently used apps and top ones based on your current context. It eliminates all those extra homescreen buttons so you can quickly jump back and forth between maps and messaging.

Finally, smart settings let you tell Cover you want your phone's ringer muted at work and after midnight at home, but on full-blast if you're out and about or home in the afternoon.

It was hard not to be impressed by Cover. The right apps at your fingertips which you can instantly preview and bounce between. And since I typically carry and iPhone, it made me a bit jealous. That's a dangerous concept for Apple, whose business is built on being coveted.

iOS: Closed To Innovation

The iPhone used to be far and away the best smartphone. Android were clunkers. But over the last few years, Android manufacturers including Samsung and HTC have built some beautiful devices like the Galaxy S4 and HTC One with next-level features like gaze tracking. Jackson jokes "whereas the iPhone vs two years ago...it has a fingerprint scanner and comes in different colors."

Meanwhile, the Android software is advancing by leaps and bounds. There are still magical flourishes in iOS 7 that give it unmatched polish, but without as big of a hardware or software advantage, Apple's price points could get harder to swallow.

It's lack of flexibility isn't doing Apple any favors. The last few years we've seen a wave of powerful Android-only apps emerge. There's auto-categorized contextual homescreen (and Cover competitor) Aviate, crowdsourced phone book and call-blocking app Mr Number, and even the maligned Facebook Home. These are all powerful, but either a bit complicated and niche, or change too much of your phone's experience.

What they succeed at though, is making iOS look rigid. Whether it's Cover or another, if there's a blockbuster hit Android-only app, it will expose the stubbornness of the closed iOS development platform, and combined with rapidly improving Android hardware and software, could make a bunch of people ditch their iPhone when it's time to upgrade.

Cover, A Gateway To App Discovery

Honestly, I woudn't be surprised if Cover was the messiah of Android. It provides a ton of value with minimal work, and you don't have to sacrifice your existing customization. With one swipe, Cover disappears and reveals your old homescreen with all your folders and widgets.

Investors believe too. Along with Josh Kopelman andFirst Round Capital, Cover's $1.7 million seed round comes from Harrison Metal Capital (Michael Dearing), Max Levchin, Scott Banister, Charlie Cheever, Keith Rabois, Dave Girouard, and Alex Franz - a mighty cap table.

Koppelman tells me "We fund a fair number of companies but this one gets me really passionate and excited because I see the future here." Charlie Cheever tells me "looking around on airplanes or public places, Im seeing the percentage of android phoens going up and up, but there's not much focus from developer community on it. There's a big opportutniy to make [the Android software] much better."