Yahoo! have announced today that they have acquired Aviate, the context-aware smart launcher for Android. The deal was announced by Marissa Mayer during the Yahoo! keynote at CES, and posts were made shortly after on both the Yahoo! and Aviate blogs.
Aviate launched their product into closed beta to great acclaim back in October, and has been met with a largely positive response. However, it suffered a scare a few days after launch when it was revealed that the company was inadvertently logging data about all the apps on a user’s device, and that this data was available on a public – albeit undocumented – API.
The core of Aviate is based around the idea of an ‘intelligent homescreen’ – that is, one that surfaces information when it is most useful. I’ve been using it for a couple of months now, and I can say it works a treat – the app automatically switches between different profiles for regularly-visited locations, as well as showing different apps depending on the time of day.
Yahoo! has said that Aviate will form a core part of its Android experience throughout 2014 and beyond, and it follows a string of acquisitions since Mayer was put in charge of the formerly ailing tech giant. Aviate said:
When we met with Yahoo, it was obvious how aligned our visions are. Yahoo, like us, is all about simplifying and streamlining users’ daily habits through intelligent and beautiful products.
To celebrate the deal, the first 25,000 people to use the code “YAHOO” on the signup page of the app will be accepted into the closed beta.