A young startup specialising in Android smartphone lock screens that anticipate what "app" a user might want at any give moment says it has been bought by Twitter.
The acquisition comes about a year after the launch of Cover, which said its free application, which hit the virtual shelves of Google Play's online shop in October, has reached hundreds of thousands of users.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Cover team has joined San Francisco-based Twitter, according to the startup.
"We built a replacement for Android's default lock-screen that makes our phones easier to use by adapting to our context - providing fast access to the right apps at the right time," Cover said in a blog post.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
"Twitter, like Cover, believes in the incredible potential of Android."
The take-over indicates that Twitter is keen to make its popular one-to-many messaging service ever more enticing to people with smartphones powered by Google-backed Android software.
An IDC survey released in February found Android had a 78.1 per cent share of global smartphone shipments in the final three months of last year, bolstered by a 40 per cent jump in the number of handsets delivered.
For the full year, Android's market share was 78.6 per cent to 15.2 per cent for Apple's iOS, 3.3 per cent for Windows Phone and 1.9 per cent for BlackBerry, IDC said.
