Locket – getting paid to unlock your lockscreen

The Android OS lets you do things with your phone that you’d never be able to do with the iPhone. You can change base level elements of the OS in some pretty cool ways. For instance, I use SwiftKey as a keyboard alternative on my phone, something I’d never be able to do with iOS.

Which brings me to Locket. Locket, currently in beta, is an app that builds advertising into the lock screen on your phone. Every time you swipe to unlock your phone, money gets put into your account. If you swipe to the left you can interact with the ad; if you swipe to the right your phone is unlocked as it normally would be. Currently you only get $.01 per swipe, but I’m guessing that will change as more advertisers get on board. Presumably you’ll get more money if you interact with an ad (that’s how I’d do it).

The app is really well done, with bright, visual images (see below) so that you don’t end up with an unattractive lockscreen. The only drawback is that you have to get to $10 before you can redeem the dough. Currently after a little over a week of using Locket I’m at $1.85. I’m going to try to hang in until they come out of beta and hopefully have more attractive incentives. I’ve also heard that you can only earn against 3 swipes for hour, but I haven’t tested that.

The only real drawback I’ve found is that you don’t get your lockscreen alerts as you normally would. It’s not as big a deal for me because I have the Pebble Watch and it alerts me, but I do wish they had an option to also show alerts.