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Cover is joining Twitter
- hlafshusfad 13y agoRIP
- jboynyc 13y agoA trope that refuses to die: "It’s been an incredible journey".
- colinbartlett 13y agohttp://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- bentcorner 13y agoI feel like the only reasonable response to this is open data standards and self hosting.
- Touche 13y agoOnly in the start-up world do you call a few months a "journey". But as I'm sure they got very little sleep it probably felt like a journey for them. Cover only launched (invite-only) in late October.
- PavlovsCat 13y agoSame for believing in rather mundane things, visions of rather mundane things, and writing a billion paragraphs about a thing only using sentences you could say about anything else, too - leaving the reader with exactly zero information as to what you're actually talking about. Writing as well as reading such blurbs could and should be automated.
- csbrooks 13y agoFirst thing I did, Ctrl-f, 'journey'... JACKPOT!
- revorad 13y agoI swear term sheets must have a clause that requires you to use an acquisition blog post template. "When we started FooBar.io $n years ago, we had $VISION_WITH_RAINBOWS_AND_UNICORNS in our young eyes. ... It’s been an incredible journey and we are proud of what we've accomplished in the last $n years. ... We were surprised when $BigCo approached us in the spring. But as talks progressed, we realised our magnetic fields were super aligned and in fact we are twins separated at birth, merely waiting to be reunited. ... (Yes, we were building $mobifotosocioapp for Android, whereas BigCo is an ad retargeting corporation for iOS, so we may look very different, but actually it's turtles all the way down.) ... With all the free snacks and Rifts now at our disposal, we can march forth with double the speed in achieving our real mission which was always actually about whatever BigCo's mission is right now. ... None of this would have been possible without you, our amazing users. So, for you, we have a special something. ... We won't simply admit that we'll be ignoring and soon shutting down your beloved app. Instead, let's pretend that everything's gonna be the same and we'll update you when "something changes" and give you ample time (at least 3 hours) to download your data in the extremely unlikely case that we pull the plug. ... You guys are the best. Thanks for making us rich. Love from Jo, Flo, Beau, Mo and $obligatory_pet."
- GuiA 13y ago"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.
- mcescalante 13y agoLikely, and maybe they're going to work on something like "Twitter Home," a new lock screen & experience for the Twitter app only on Android. If done correctly (and not invasively) I can possibly see people using it. Then they'll announce the Cover app is no longer available.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoHopefully it leads to improvements in the Twitter for Android app. Compared with the iOS version it's abysmal (IMO).
- unreal37 13y agoOr maybe they will enhance the functionality to make Twitter superior from the lock screen.
- smackfu 13y agoBetter or worse than just killing off the product?
- jypepin 13y agoworse than having the team continue to work on a good product that people love. I think it's the point of the author of the comment here.
- acjohnson55 13y agoMaybe they weren't making any money. If that's the case, the product would probably die eventually anyway, like Everpix, for instance. I guess that's the issue with these bittersweet acquihires. Tough to tell what the alternative is.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoDamn. 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 13y agoCan't you toggle between work and home manually, using a volume key?
- k-mcgrady 13y agoNot 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.
- sinofer 13y agomaybe give a try to Start lockscreen app.
- kul 13y agoHi, I'm curious to know what features Cover had that you loved?
- k-mcgrady 13y agoThe simplicity of it was key. I'd previously been excited about Aviate (admittedly a launcher not a lock screen) but it was much too complex to get working perfectly. Cover showed me the apps it thought I needed but allowed me too easily swipe up to see more. It's 'peek' feature was very useful I found and I also liked it's quick task switching (swipe down from status bar to access most recent apps).
- minimaxir 13y agoAn acquihire for a startup which had received $1.7M investment is probably not a great success.
- unreal37 13y agoDon'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?
- coolsunglasses 13y agoThat's about right.
- jmathai 13y agoI 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 13y agoYeah, 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.
- bdlbdl 13y agoI highly doubt it was that little. I've seen quite a few acquihire term sheets and the payoffs are a lot better than you would think for the founders. I bet the investors get their money back, the founders of Cover get $2m - $4m each in stock alone (vesting over 4 years of course), and the employees get $500k / year in total comp.
- DrJokepu 13y agoSomeone has explained it here a couple of years ago that VCs generally view them as failures as they have investment pools with lifetimes of 7-10 years and each pool is expected to yield something like a 10x profit at the end of the period. There's not much difference between losing their original investment and getting it back as they will have similar effects on the performance figures of the pool at the end of the cycle.
- Infinitesimus 13y agoWell, I guess we're gonna have an app in the playstore that does the same thing within a week then...
- ExpendableGuy 13y agoBummer. 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.
- leonhuu007 13y agoCongrats Boys!!!
- nilkn 13y agoThis 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).
- natrius 13y agoIf you're looking for a similar replacement, I like Aviate. Yahoo bought them, but they're still developing the app.
- pnachbaur 13y agoI actually hadn't been using Cover, but I'm a big fan of Aviate. I greatly prefer it over the stock/Samsung experience.
- akramhussein 13y agoSuch 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 13y agoI 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 13y agoAn 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.
- ry0ohki 13y agoThere are different types of aquihires. Those that happen quickly, in which a fresh, innovative company is offered a large-to-them sum of money and cashes in their chips right away. And those that happen at the end of life of a company, when they are running out of money, and it's just a positive way to spin the failure. I guess this could be either but to me it seems to be the former, not the latter.
- pvnick 13y agoYou 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 13y agoI 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.
- tf1 13y agoAdenda would have been a better choice. They turn any app into a lock screen app http://www.adendamedia.com/ http://www.adendamedia.com/
- mkr-hn 13y agoCan 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 13y agoI fail to understand why people congratulate the founders for selling out their startups.
- mscarborough 13y agoBecause it's kinda the point?
- caiob 13y agoThe point is to build a product and sell it to a giant? ok, then.
- ihsw 13y agoThey're not selling out, they're buying in. Big difference.
- why-el 13y agoDrop the "out" and it becomes a much better sentence. :)
- sosborn 13y agoI fail to understand why people judge others for decisions like this.
- Colter 13y agoI 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 13y agoIt'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 13y agoAs 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)
- sirkneeland 13y agoIf 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 13y agoHi, I'm curious to know how it augmented your Android experience?
- sirkneeland 13y agoIt 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.
- drdaeman 13y agoNever 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.
- funkyy 13y agoI 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...
- NicoJuicy 13y agoCover 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 :(