The homescreen as platform

I keep circling this idea from my notes: the homescreen is not wallpaper, it is a platform. Whoever owns the first swipe sets defaults for attention, intent, and revenue. I’m revisiting a 2017 thought about making a Facebook Home-style layer. 🏠👇

Found this on Feb 26, 2017: “What if Shravan is like Facebook Home? Facebook, WhatsApp, News, etc., on your homescreen.” Back then Android launchers were a thing and the Google Now pane owned left of home. iOS 10 had Today view and rich notifications but no real launchers. Facebook Home had already stumbled. Shravan was the smartphone UI for people with disabilities that we built at @OswaldLabs.

What I meant: Shravan as a custom home layer.

Upside: Zero latency access to social and messaging and news. Unified intent routing. Ambient presence.

Costs: Background limits and overlay rules, no OEM distribution, battery hits, and the trust tax of replacing defaults.

Also, the notification shade was becoming the real surface. Inline replies, deep links, and intent filters turned “home” into workflow, not just content. A new launcher risked copying the notification system instead of compounding it.

What changed since: Lock screen feeds grew in some markets. Widgets matured on Android and iOS. Privacy norms tightened with things like ATT and per app notification permission. Messaging went end to end encrypted. Deep integration now flows through intents, universal links, and share sheets more than overlays.

So a viable Shravan today would not hijack home with a feed. It would coordinate intent. On-device models that triage notifications, summarize threads, and surface next actions. A glanceable and user tunable layer that hands off to the app when needed and never traps attention.

Durable principles I keep coming back to:
- Distribution beats features. Partner with OEMs or live where the user already is, like the shade or lock screen.
- Respect muscle memory. Add value in place, do not rip out defaults.
- Build on system primitives first. Intents, links, widgets, notifications.
- Privacy and power budget are product features.

Here’s the original note from 8 years ago: https://github.com/AnandChowdhary/notes/blob/main/notes/2017/what-if-shravan.md