Introducing Cover | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Cover

coverscreen.tumblr.com

196 pointstimdorr96 comments

This is a neat idea, however, I fail to see either why it requires so much funding ($1.7m according to TechCrunch) or any server backend whatsoever.

The real product here is almost certainly an analytics service. From Cover's privacy policy at https://www.coverscreen.com/privacy:

  Cover records the following items: 

  The list of apps installed on your phone, including which apps are
  on your homescreen and dock

  The number of times you run an app, including the time and place 
  where you ran it (specifically, the cell tower or wifi network you 
  were connected to, or that you were located within a geographic area 
  you identified such as home or work)

  The number of times you turn on your phone (i.e. view your Cover 
  lockscreen), and what you do subsequently: launch an app, slide open 
  the cover, or simply turn the screen back off (e.g. just glance at 
  the clock).

  Information from connected Bluetooth devices, such as the Bluetooth 
  device ID of your car.

  Information from the sensors in your phone, such as the 
  accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS (though GPS is used exceptionally 
  sparingly in order to save your battery).

  The system starts to collect data as soon as you install Cover. The 
  data collection continues until you remove Cover from your phone. 

  The data is uploaded from your phone over a secured connection to 
  our servers.

Cover is tracking every app you launch on your phone, when you launch it, where you are when you launch it, and even what angle you're holding your phone when you launch it. Privacy concerns notwithstanding, sounds like valuable data.

I'd suggest that a portion of the funding go towards a re-write of the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. I'm by no means an expert, but I'm not one to mess with having holes in legal documents that could later bite me in the ass.

It's glaringly obvious they did not hire a lawyer to write their Privacy Policy or Terms of Service. I understand they mention "human readable" in the beginning of the Privacy Policy, but does this really hold up in court? In the Terms of Service, they make mention to "You" as opposed to "Client", "Customer", etc, with no definition.

Hold up in court to what?

Yeah, I was excited until I got the point about "our servers". Why would they need any data on their servers just to know when I need to read email?

But it's a good idea, hopefully easy to copy and release as an actual app (something I define as an executable that runs *on' a device, not a glorified json interpreter and exchange system).

There is probably useful analysis that they can perform in aggregate across all of their users. Perhaps people who read email are more likely to do <x> at a certain time and that signal is only noticeable with more data than you as an individual generate.

Seems that type of analysis is not really helpful in the long run. It should be catering to me, not what it thinks I need based on other people's habits. If my habits are completely different than everybody else's, then the results it provides are almost always off. Then it has to figure things out again solely using me, which it should have done in the first place.

It would be interesting to read the app permissions on Google Play when this app launches.

It sounds like it requires everything.

I could build you one of those without privacy intrusion, and add the ability to switch from home/work/car automatically using GPS.

I'd be happy with 1% of what they raised , anyone interested? :(

Don't need GPS - WIFI connection can cover home and work. I personally don't suggest any automation for car mode. It should be manually started / stopped for safety sake unless you have an accurately-made car dock.

Do it and I'll donate money to make it happen. I am being serious.

We could do it all together on assembly - I can fast track through to assemblymade.com/ideas

(Disclaimer: founder)

Dude, can I just say I wanna make love with the idea behind assembly? I just saw the website and video and it makes so much sense!!

... and I could help by suggesting that you shouldn't use GPS for trying to figure out home/work/car, but rather a combination of WiFi and accelerometer data. Using GPS often will drain a battery faster than your users will uninstall the app.

Judging by the reaction here, I think people would.

Kickstarer campaign?

I agree with you. I like the idea and concept, but I prefer that apps like this actually let me do some of the teaching manually. Perhaps try to define the apps I want to appear at certain times of the day.

One of the reasons I stopped using Aviate was that I felt like their scenes just didn't really match what i was doing at the time.

I'd assume you prefer to do it yourself is because you haven't found a system that does it well enough for you to let go of control? Or are you just the kind of person who tends to like to do things the harder way?

I wouldn't blame you for being the latter - it's kind of like people who prefer to drive a manual transmission to automatic.

Or perhaps it's faster, easier, and more accurate to place your own five icons that to wait for an algorithm to try and figure it out.

Just out of curiosity how long did you use Aviate for. I would assume their algorithm just keeps track of how many times you use an app at a specific location and then the premise would be after some amount of time it would reach a general consistency. To speed up that process It would be nice to be able to define a list of apps up front which have a greater weight and then hopefully it will reach a list of apps that you actually use over time.

This terrifies me. There's an instant problem of paranoia, and trust here. I would never be okay with the idea of an application monitoring what I'm doing, in order to reorder itself. Mind you, I say all this without knowing if it requests network access.

How do I know you're not sending my usage patterns upstream to CoverCorp? How do I know that you're not reading the Android Music Provider database, and sharing my data back?

So, let's say your worst fears are true, and it's sending up a log of every app you use. What happens then? What's the harm? I'm not being rhetorical, I really don't follow what the fear is here. I can't imagine how my life would be any different if some company knows that I launched chrome at 12:22, then hangouts at 12:30, then some half-assed game at 12:35.

Just because its fun to play "worst case scenario"...

An actuary finds a link between late night cell phone usage and mental illness X. They determine that given your cell phone usage pattern, you have an 50% chance of illness X. Such information is sold to insurance companies, employment background check companies, yada yada

>> "An actuary finds a link between late night cell phone usage and mental illness X. They determine that given your cell phone usage pattern, you have an 50% chance of illness X. Such information is sold to insurance companies, employment background check companies, yada yada"

What scares me about this is that there is a place in the world having an illness affects your employment prospects and costs you money (insurance).

Aren't there laws in place about selling/sharing individualized personal information?

If not, then I think there should be so apps that simply want to use aggregated data will be allowed and will be guaranteed to be safe.

When we give up all privacy, suddenly it no longer exists.

Right, and... what would the harm be there? Is that just a fundamental value for you?

> Right, and... what would the harm be there?

That's a little too obvious to state so I won't pretend there's people here that haven't figured that out yet for the sake of overly-pedantic or naive arguing. You're moving into "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" territory.

> Is that just a fundamental value for you?

Yep. It's in my country's constitution and protected under various laws.

You probably mean bill of rights. The US Constitution has no wording expressing any concerns over an American's privacy.

I'm referring to the 4th amendment in the Bill of Rights, in the US Constitution that was interpreted by Katz v. United States to protect individuals with a "reasonable expectation of privacy."

The Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution.

> Right, and... what would the harm be there? Is that just a fundamental value for you?

For those that haven't read it, I still recommend this as a good introduction to some fundamental ideas around why privacy should/could be considered a basic right:

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/priva...

This is true. And... if you're on the Internet, I'm sorry, but you can have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That includes owning a smartphone.

An app on a phone doesn't necessarily qualify as being "on the Internet". That's like saying if you use Calculator on your PC then you shouldn't expect privacy on the Internet.

Agreed. Smartphones are nice little tracking devices, now helpfully with GPS!

Using GPS to track someone is for lazy people. If they have a signal, you don't need GPS to have an idea of where they are.

Presumably it's also sending up a log of exactly where and when you used them, too, so it's basically your full high-res location history if you're as smartphone-addicted as most people in the tech industry are these days.

Sorry, I'm relatively new here, so I don't know the etiquette, so I'm responding to you directly. I appreciate the question!

Firstly, it's not a matter of what's the harm, it's a matter of what's their right. The only person with a right to my information is me. I can appreciate the need for financial data sharing (note: need), but I don't appreciate the "need" of phone application data.

My example above with music is a good one. What if the CRIA (RIAA up here) decides to come after me for my music collection, based solely on data gleaned from this company. I own 800+ cds, I've dutifully ripped them all, I've bought another 100+ albums on iTunes, eMusic, etc. But I can't prove the eMusic ones. They're MP3s, and more importantly, because I'm pro-privacy, each one has been regenerated from the original MP3s, headers ripped. That means the MP3 looks nothing like the one I purchased. The problem in the current court system is that although the notion of innocent until proven guilty exists, it would take a long time to establish that reasonable doubt. And this is for legitimate usage of my music collection.

Let's go a (perhaps crazy) step further, pretend you're in America (disclosure: I'm in Canada), and you have two political parties. Political party "A" produces an app that you download, just to check it out. All of a sudden you're deemed to be an "A" as opposed to a "B". As data gets sold, or to be legally accurate "shared only within our partner organizations" you apply for a mortgage at a bank wherein the loan officer is affiliated with "B", and your loan gets denied? Why should your political interest (not even affiliation) have anything to do with your ability to receive financing.

Extend that concept to interest in health insurance, or VPN network usage, or a more realistic general interest in chemistry (I like model rockets, they need propellant).

The reality of the situation is that corporations cannot be trusted, neither can government. At the very least the EXTREME MAJORITY of Terms of Service agreements make it abundantly clear that "data is only shared with partners" or something similar. The net result is that anyone can partner.

Sorry if that came off rantish.

We've heard recently of HR departments saying that, because a study showed that sociopaths are (obviously) less likely to have Facebook accounts, people without Facebook accounts are bad hires. There is no personal data that corporate America will not find some way to use for evil.

Why wouldn't sociopaths have facebook? It's an excellent arena to play out little mind-games.

I don't doubt some HR departments would act on something like that, although they probably wouldn't stop hiring people that have a resume with strong leadership positions even though there are studies showing a correlation between attaining management positions and sociopathy...

How do you know that Google is not doing all this as part of the Android OS? Or any other app on your phone that requests network access?

Secondly, why would you care?

> Secondly, why would you care?

Where have you been the past months, under a rock?

Privacy and trust are very valuable concepts these days, after months of NSA spying and companies trying to monetize every byte of your personal(and public) data..

Its just a bad time for this, everybody is pretty sensitive over this sort of things right now, and we cant blame them

For extremely narrow definitions of 'everybody'.

Apps on your phone (that have the right permissions) already have the ability to do everything that this app does. Did you personally audit the source code/reverse engineer every app to find out whether it is abusing these privileges? Do you trust the author of every privileged app on your phone?

This is the reality of smart phones. The only difference with this app is that it is upfront about profiling you. Coverscreen has a lot to lose if it anyone finds out they are misusing your data. You should be more worried about apps that aren't telling you how you're being profiled/monitored.

Isn't this just an extension of what Google Now does? Do you mean that you'll never be okay with the idea, unless it's Google doing it?

I feel like the benefits outweigh the potential for downsides. Seeing potential is immediately obvious - but a company having anonymous application launch data seems harmless, and finding a way that the information you're sending them could directly impact your life in a negative way seems like a snipe hunt. Especially if you limit it to scenarios where the data benefits their company and negatively impacts you - it just doesn't seem realistic.

I may be biased here though - I do a lot of work on user interface tailoring for Microsoft, which inherently requires a lot of tracking.

How can data used to watch for when a person is at home and work be considered anonymous? How many people do you live with and also work with and also carpool with?

> I would never be okay with the idea of an application monitoring what I'm doing, in order to reorder itself.

Oh boy, how will you survive the next 20 years? Saying "I will never touch a computer" 40 years ago would have had the same effect.

The privacy policy linked upthread suggests that they intend to upload very detailed information about your location and usage.

I agree. Wouldn't an optimal solution (from both consumer and business viewpoints) be to have 3 "chips" that use NFC or some other touch enabled technology - home, car, work. You stick them wherever you want actually.

So how does it work with a PIN / pattern lock?

The problem with most lock screen enhancements is that anything you put there is outside your phone security "firewall" and available to anybody who picks up your phone. The 4.2 lock screen widgets work fairly well with this (eg: you can open the camera app without unlocking the phone, but attempting to swipe over the gallery forces you to unlock). However they are (I assume) using the core framework APIs to do that and I presume support for it is coded into the apps, while this seems to be doing it for any app.

It sounds like they're avoiding the issue for now by only allowing non-locked users:

> When you send them your email address they ask if you use a lock screen. (re: @ev9)

Actually, their F.A.Q.[1] says that they do support this feature:

>Is Cover compatible with a security code? (passcode, pattern, etc.)?

Yes. Cover is compatible with both PIN codes and security patterns. When you have a security code set, Cover’s “peek” feature is disabled. The app icons will slide across the screen, the security code screen will appear, and then the app will launch. In order to use peek, we recommend that you configure your security code not to take effect immediately. For example, if you set it to a 1-minute or 5-minute timeout, you’ll be able to use peek without sacrificing much security.

[1]: https://www.coverscreen.com/faq

Wow, so much negativity!

What happened to the dreams of a computer in your pocket that knew what you wanted to do?

All anyone can think of is to complain about privacy? Really?

I once did a brainstorm session with a facilitator who taught me a great technique. Whenever someone suggests something you aren't allowed to so "No" or "But" - instead you should say "Yes" or "And".

Try it for a second:

This application tries to predict what you will need when you pick your phone up. Currently it uses serverside processing to help with that. Yes, and imagine what else it could do with that serverside power! No battery constraints to worry about!

Privacy problems are a great way to kill good ideas. Put those concerns aside for a minute and imagine the portability of handheld devices merged with the power of always-on servers.

Yes and privacy problems are still real issues especially as privacy rights are continuously eroded every single day.

Just because you wanted something in your pocket to solve all your problems, doesn't mean everyone else did. Many of us wanted a great tool, not a buddy or advisor or mind-reader.

Every technological development has many possible routes it can follow, it can't follow them all. And you will inevitably be disappointed at some of the routes it takes.

Can you imagine what it must be like to be Richard Stallman or Ted Nelson with a clearly articulated vision of the future but so many things go the other way?

Why can't this be a good thing with strong privacy protections? What privacy problems are exactly holding it back?

I imagine such a tool that collects such information to make things easier as possibly a wonderful thing. I also imagine such a tool that shares all that information with a third party as possibly a horrible thing.

I would be willing to go along with your thought, as long as I knew that the information being collected was heavily encrypted and that the only person who would ever get to see it is me. Even then, recent events have shown us that encrypted data on someone else's server is not exactly safe from prying eyes.

Don't be so willing to casually toss away your privacy. Once it's gone you may miss it and be unable to get it back.

> What happened to the dreams of a computer in your pocket that knew what you wanted to do?

"Yes", the dream lives on; your pocket, your computer, your life -- dream on.

"But" this is a for profit business.

I have found the opposite: If you expose your ideas to the criticism of others, you expose flaws in your idea, which leads you to improve the idea. If you don't like something, say no. Say but. Say the truth.

I'm sad to see that EVERY SINGLE REPLY to this comment was "Yes.. but", and the issues raised were exactly the same as in every other thread on this story.

I find that more disappointing than the undoubted privacy issues in the application itself. I would note that the privacy issues in this application are no different to those in any other application with a serverside back end.

But I guess we feel we need to prove how smart we are by dissecting them.. again.

The Android app SayIt has a widget that does something similar to this. It learns purely from usage/recency and is generally very good at presenting you with the apps your most likely to launch. All of the analysis is performed on the device so no information is shared with 3rd party servers. It also sports very fast voice based app launching. No affiliation just use it. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rn.sayit

Looks like to be in competition with Aviate: http://getaviate.com/

On a semi-related topic, is it really possible for an app to properly replace the Android lockscreen? I haven't found any way to do it. As far as I can tell, all the "lock screen" apps use a hack where they disable the stock lock screen and then emulate a lock screen by asking you to make the lockscreen app your default home screen and then launching your "real" home screen when you "unlock" them. I've seen it said that they do this because it isn't truly possible to replace the lock screen. The problem is, of course, that this hack sometimes doesn't work or produces weird results often enough to discourage me from using any custom lock screen.

There are some other alternatives. HTC had a lockscreen API for a while. Similarly, generic Android has started supporting widgets on the lock screen, basically. One of the evangelists even has a popular widget lockscreen with extensions called DashClock that many people are writing for.

Lastly, I haven't tried it, but I suspect replacing the Android Launcher would also let you do it. This is the method Facebook used for putting their talking heads in every app.

> Lastly, I haven't tried it, but I suspect replacing the Android Launcher would also let you do it. This is the method Facebook used for putting their talking heads in every app.

The talking heads overlay doesn't require replacing the Launcher. Installing just the FB Messenger app will get you that feature too.

AFAIK, it uses the "Draw over other apps" permission (android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW) to achieve this. Here's a library that does the same: https://github.com/pingpongboss/StandOut/

My initial reaction to this is nothing but love.

I hate the idea it needs all sorts of server connections for their business model. I don't know a way around that, but if they or another company figure out how, that's what people will gravitate toward. Especially given the paranoid climate.

They could charge money for the app? It doesn't say anywhere, but I'm guessing it's going to be free given the analytics business model.

Mobile users don't expect to pay for apps, ever. Even if people are willing to pay, there isn't any recurring revenue unless you charge for upgrades and the upgrade would have to be to be significantly better than the version they already own. So the question is, how much could you improve a product like this, over the course of life time of the business?

Not to mention that mobile users generally feel entitled to free upgrades - TapBots are having this problem right now with TweetBot.

Got my 5S in the mail last week.

This makes me want an Android. Great job, guys!

I was excited for about five seconds, and then I realized that this thing is way the hell more complicated than I need.

All I want is a way to put the current weather on my lockscreen under the time, and to put immediate access to camera, flashlight, and Google Now there. Everything else I'm perfectly comfortable doing myself. Any suggestions for an app that does that?

Weather and time on lockscreen is easy using one of the widgets that can be placed into an Android lockscreen, for example DashClock: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.nurik.roma...

Shortcuts... edge swipe from bottom on my lockscreen gives Google Now (after asking for the security code). On my Nexus 4, edge swipe from right brought the camera, though that doesn't seem to be working on the Nexus 7 I have now.

For flashlight you could maybe add this extension to DashClock: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fleckdalm....

Note: this is assuming that you have a stock Android 4.x lockscreen. No idea whether these things work on one of the custom vendor lockscreens.

If you were using AOKP or CyanogenMod or any of a dozen other alternate Android builds, you would already have that.

When I tap the power button, I get: current weather, time, next calendar item.

When I touch the unlock symbol, dragging it right unlocks the phone, but dragging it up, down or left gets me to the phone, camera, and my ebook reader.

All of this is configurable, including the number of items available at unlock time. Downside: the unlock icons are not available if you use a PIN or password.

I use WidgetLocker.

They're going to have the same problem as Facebook Home. They're essentially doing an overlay activity like most of us do. It only works as they describe provided the user keeps the device unlocked in the system. You can't bypass the device lock screen without rooting the device.

I thought the main problem users had with Facebook Home was "where did my widgets to?"

This looks really nice UI wise and the video aesthetic is clean. Great job on that.

Are those interactions simulated though? I'm not an Android user so when I saw how thin the bezel was on that white phone they use I had to look it up.

Turns out it's the S4 Play Edition[1] without the Samsung logo. That bezel isn't right though, I mean the S4 bezel is pretty thin but the video makes it look razor thin. Also: I want razor thin bezels, let's get there.

[1] http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s4-google...

This looks really slick!

How well does it work with some kind of lock-screen security? The UX for that is always a hassle, and I'd love to find someone who is doing it well.

I'd imagine they're ignoring lock screen stuff for the moment. When you send them your email address they ask if you use a lock screen. I bet they're filtering invites to those who don't. MVP, and whatnot.

Interesting example of a useful smartphone extension that is Android-only because of limitations in the access iOS gives 3rd party apps.

I wrote an iOS speed-dial app that does the same sort of predication for contacts that this does for applications. It's definitely an order of magnitude less sophisticated, but I though it might be worth sharing: http://nate-at-lightspeed.appspot.com/swiftdial

I must've missed something because the site says "launched" but I can't find the app on the site or in Google Play. Or is it only available for certain devices? I have an HTC One Google Play edition.

The site's banner still says "Coming soon to Google Play"

Heh. What the Facebook phone could never be; useful.

It would be good to be able to define actions based on location (either by which wifi I connect to or GPS) - as well as time of day.

(I'd like to have my screen auto dim at 10PM)

Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....) is perfect for this kind of thing. There is a learning curve but it's worth it - very powerful app.

and automateit, llama and even microsoft on x..

Try Twilight. Its reason for existence is to redshift and dim your screen in the evening hours so the excess blue light doesn't impact sleep quite so much, but if you don't like the red shift you can disable it and it'll just auto-dim.

Seems nice, I will definitely give it a try. Remind me of http://everything.me

Doesn't Android already have a "profiles" mode so you can switch between multiple app layouts and configurations?

Why does it need an internet connection? Why is it posting data to a server?

Looks like a nicer version of aviate.

this thing is slick! Great, thoughtful design that is making me want my android back

wow, beautiful device... anyone know which is it?

Neat idea, elegantly executed. Exceeds the design standards typical of Android apps.

I've never liked Android's implementation of home/app screens (widgets + some apps, tap to reveal all your apps).

I guess if you want a lot of clocks, Android is great.

This adds another app/button layer...

Hah, widgets is the feature which makes Android great for me. I don't need to open each and every app every time to see the state and I can see multiple things right on my homescreen at the same time. It's so much more than "lot of clocks". In fact lock screen widgets are even better since I don't even have to unlock my phone to see widgets and updates.

I suppose the app drawer concept is the same between iOS and Android and I get an option - (which is important) if you don't like having multiple homescreens, you can just disable it. I can arrange all work related apps and widgets on left homescreen, all personal on the right. And all the other apps remain in the drawer. On iOS, I don't get this option.

Right, unlocking the phone prior to opening apps is so hard and boring. Let's just launch them directly from the lockscreen. Wait, apps are accidentally being launched in my pocket. Can I have a lockscreen for the lockscreen?

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