Cover Lock Screen Review: a contextual power-up for your lockscreen

Developer: Cover | Download: Android |
Category: Lock Screen | Price: Free |
What do we mean? Cover looks for your location and tries to determine whether you are home, at work, in your car, or just out, and then displays shortcuts to the apps you are likely to use most at each of these places.
Cover is available now for free on the Google Play store, supporting devices running on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or higher. It is still in beta, though, and while it ran fine on our Nexus 5 and Moto G, we should warn you that it might not be perfectly optimized for all devices. With this in mind, let’s explore it in a bit more depth.

The lock screen replacement gets activated right after that and you can start using it right away. There are six app shortcuts on the left side of the lock screen with the most used apps appearing at the top. You can swipe up on the lock screen to get six more, so you are not limited to just the first six. On the right screen side, you can see if the app has correctly detected your location (it says ‘work’, ‘home’, ‘car’, or ‘out’), and there’s also a clock and the current date. The lockscreen wallpaper is also different for each of the places, and you can change it if you want.

All in all, the Cover Lock Screen beta application brings a concept we like a lot - have only the apps that you need when you need them right on your lock screen. If you have a top-shelf device the class of say the Nexus 5 or Samsung Galaxy S4, and don’t really care much about the privacy of your phone data, Cover is a must-have. Or at least, a must-try. For owners of slower devices, though, and those that absolutely need to have their phone pass-protected, Cover is still worth checking out, but may not be a perfect fit.
Pros
- Cover is contextual requiring no effort - it automatically determines your location
- Quick access to the apps you need where you need them
- Learns from your use and becomes better with time
- Clean yet nice looks
- Free
Cons
- It’s not well optimized for use with passcodes
- Requires more resources than your average app - you’d need a faster phone
- Contextual awareness works best with Wi-Fi networks, but is not so accurate with maps
Developer: Cover | Download: Android |
Category: Lock Screen | Price: Free |
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