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With Cyanogen dead, Google's control over Android is tighter than ever
- fattire 10y agohttp://lineageos.org/Yes-this-is-us/ http://lineageos.org/Yes-this-is-us/ Hopefully it gets done right this time.
- sli 10y agoBit of an alarmist article title when plenty of fairly popular alternatives exist, like AOKP, AOSB, Slim, and PA. Was CM doing something extra to/with their ROMs and code that these are not?
- colordrops 10y agoHasn't CM covered more models with greater stability than alternatives?
- bobbyd3 10y agoGenerally speaking, yes.
- dispose13432 10y agoAOKP - dead. PA - dead AOSB - Exceeded bandwidth and archive doesn't seem to have archived it properly. According to Google cache, they're working on L, so seems dead. Slim - was dead for a few years. Seems to have revived. The question is what will LineageOS look like?
- hackuser 10y ago> PA - dead I thought so too but, based on a quick search I just did, it was relaunched in 2016.
- dispose13432 10y agoTrue!! I thought they were aquihired by OnePlus after the CM deal fell through to make OxygenOS
- hackuser 10y agoI thought the same. I wonder what happened.
- varuniyer 10y agoAOKP is definitely not dead. Take a look at the recent gerrit activity: https://gerrit.aokp.co https://gerrit.aokp.co
- varuniyer 10y agoSorry, do url without https, so gerrit.aokp.co
- bobbyd3 10y agoMany custom ROM's are/were based on the CyanogenMod source code. Without CyanogenMod/lineageos, custom ROM chef's would need to rely exclusively on AOSP [1] source code instead. Certain custom ROM's such as ParanoidAndroid [2] used AOSP as a base prior to CyanogenMod getting shutdown so these ROM's would not be impacted. The nice thing about CyanogenMod was the wide variety of devices they supported. This meant you could get a newer version of Android/CM on what would have been an otherwise unsupported device by the OEM/Wireless Carrier. CyanogenMod was generally the model project for other third-party custom ROM's. [1] http://source.android.com/source/index.html http://source.android.com/source/index.html [2] http://www.paranoidandroid.co/ http://www.paranoidandroid.co/
- h4waii 10y agoWith all respect to each of those projects and the work that goes in to them, just about all of those ROMs are based on CM sources and will seriously stagnate until Lineage is up and running full steam ahead.
- vidyesh 10y agoMost of the custom ROMs out there were based on CM with their spin to it. CM supported more than 500 devices, the only other ROM that is even close to that is MIUI which supports about 200 devices (most of which are in China). Other ROMs support less than 50 devices. Some even keep it limited to Nexus devices only (read CopperheadOS). AOKP is based on CM AOSB isn't being officially updated to even Lollipop I think. SlimROM is active but yet again quite limited and slow. They released their ROM based on M late this year which is very late in terms of custom ROMs standard (even most OEMs by then had released M for their devices) Paranoid Android is active but limited to about 30-40 popular devices. CM was known for supporting devices which the OEMs ignore after 2 years of launching them. And once CM was released for it many other custom ROMs were developed based on it to keep devices updated. This is the main reason why CM is most popular and appreciated for.
- hackuser 10y agoWhat about OmniROM? My impression, based on not a lot of experience, was that OmniROM was CM's leading competitor.
- HillaryBriss 10y agostealing Android doesn't seem like a particularly great idea in the first place. maybe look for something much better than Android. but, i guess it was really about Android's market share.
- hota_mazi 10y agoIt's not any tighter than it was before Cyanogen's death.
- meesterdude 10y agoThat's a great narrative, but the project lives on ala the nature of open source. http://lineageos.org/ http://lineageos.org/
- dispose13432 10y agoWe'll see in a few months how viable is it.
- frik 10y agoI want to read the full story, including how Microsoft was involved with Cyanogen(Inc/Mod). At one point CyanogenInc partnered with MSFT so they have a Microsoft sponsored Android flavour with several Microsoft apps preinstalled. https://cyngn.com/press/cyanogen-announces-strategic-partnership-with-microsoft https://cyngn.com/press/cyanogen-announces-strategic-partner... http://www.businessinsider.de/why-microsoft-cuddled-up-to-cyanogen-2015-12?r=US&IR=T http://www.businessinsider.de/why-microsoft-cuddled-up-to-cy... smells like MSFT common EEE strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish to hit Google's Android market, especially now as their WinPhone market is dead with less than 1% of world wide market share.
- untog 10y agoCyanogenmod (and every other custom ROM) is, and always was, an extreme minority of Android users. I don't really see how this changes anything.
- shade23 10y ago> I don't really see how this changes anything. This affects much more than the small minority that you think: PS : its hard to differentiate between ROMs here since the Android XDA community tend to be quite competitive and sharing a lot of code - Dynamic Tiles was first introduced by CyanogenMod. - CM introduced ambient lighting based day/night modes - CM's Theme Engine is still one of the best out there. While they derived their themeing engine from Sony. Google added app based status tinting into android after this - CM/PA had even introduced a camera tile which still remains a wonderous thing - The long press on home button for google now, seems like a concept heavily derived from PA's Pie Menu. - Runtime permissions came in Marshmallow, But CM's privacy guard came much earlier. There are several other minor features also which made the cut from AOKP roms to AOSP. And once you spend enough time on websites like [Google-My Activity][1] .You would realise why many would want to avoid the google ecosystem owing to their privacy concerns. Most of the alternative android app markets like F-Droid survived majorly because of custom ROMS. While their numbers were not huge, they were the few who preferred keeping control of their devices and the information that they shared. Almost 80% of the custom ROMs are forked off CM. With CM being dead,this would affect others too. You can also thank CM for ensuring that devices have a much longer lifespan than what the OEMs deem. [1]:https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity
- itsame 10y agoMinor quibble, but CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard was a glorified UI on top of App Ops that Google had already been developing. Also, IMHO, it's a bit of a stretch to say that the Google Now shortcut was inspired by PA's Pie controls. One is just a shortcut to an enhanced search feature, and the other is... not unlike iOS's Assistive Touch feature on steroids. The only commonality is that they occur near/around the home button. EDIT: And in fact, my Galaxy Note II had a "long-press menu button to trigger search" since the dedicated search button was removed -- nothing particularly unique about that paradigm. While Cyanogen Inc. may well have been Google's biggest "threat" when it came to control of Android, it wasn't even that big a threat to begin with. They were always beholden to Google's source dumps, as was any other ROM distribution. I'd argue little has changed in terms of how much control Google has over Android's destiny, and Cyanogen Inc.'s (impending) death doesn't really move the compass in any meaningful way.
- joshiej 10y agoI'd die to see the day we could install custom ROMs on an Apple device
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dispose13432 10y agoThe article is wrong on so many counts: 1. Closed source apps are not the threat (Nowhere does it say that the dialer, home screen, messaging app, or camera are a part of the OS. All are replaceable, and all replacements integrate just as well as the original, it's not an iPhone). 2. Google controlled Android through legal means - If you want to make your Android phone in a factory, or if you want to use any google app, you need to obey their rules. So if yo want Play store, you have to play along. 3. Cyanogen saw Google as a threat, but Google didn't see Cyanogen as a threat. Cyanogen didn't die because of Google's behavior. They died because of terrible execution. Remember the spat over split-windows. Google didn't ban the appstore (despite being able to), they demanded that the environment not be _too_ modified. Cyanogenmod backed down and Google let it go. The only thing is that they were forbidden to _package_ it, but opengapps is still around. 4. Google isn't closing-source because of Cyanogenmod or other custom Roms. It's bigger threat is Samsung or Amazon.
- kuschku 10y ago> Closed source apps are not the threat Yes, they are. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html > All are replaceable You can not replace the Dialer at all. Replacements can not integrate at all. The others have similar problems. > Google controlled Android through legal means According to the EU, they didn’t – they abused their market power to extort companies to force them to bundle their products. > Google didn't see Cyanogen as a threat. Yet Google cracked down even more on OEMs that shipped non-Google Android in markets where Google Android exists in the meantime. They definitely saw a threat. > Google didn't ban the appstore (despite being able to), they demanded that the environment not be _too_ modified. See the EU argument again: Google does not have the right to restrict their services in that way, due to having too much market power. They can not discriminate against the environments their products will be used in.
- vidyesh 10y agoCame to say most of this and agree 100%. I would like to add more to this. Not only stock apps are not replaceable on most devices but they might not even work as OEMs are notorious with their ROMs and don't use all of the Android hardware API in their apps instead develop their own which makes it easy for them to update. This sounds good but isn't as most good third-party apps use those drivers & APIs to make them work. That is why until M fingerprint sensor mostly worked on all apps which used Android's fingerprint API but wouldn't work on a lot of devices as OEMs used their own to integrate in the device.
- netsec_burn 10y agoWhat about Oxygen?
- wtfishackernews 10y agoWe need it to breathe. (but seriously, what about it?)
- vidyesh 10y agoPeople usually get confused about OPO's business model. They think OPO is a 'XDA community device' which makes cheap flagships for the people so they would do anything to fulfill their wishes. So some think OxygenOS is a custom ROM supporting tons of devices.
- lalos 10y agoMakes me think on how much is Google using open source just as a gimmick or a marketing term and win over engineers when in reality they know that is next to impossible to achieve something with the code they publish and the dependencies on their services. Even if a contender uses their code, they have all the resources to squash them by marketing their product way better.
- ryao 10y agoThis is a really bad title. Cyanogen is founder of the Cyanogenmod project and he is not dead.
- dorfsmay 10y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/CyanogenMod/status/813086249506349056 https://mobile.twitter.com/CyanogenMod/status/81308624950634...
- ufo 10y agoI think you missed the point. CyanogenMod was named after its founder, Steve Kondik, who's online alias is cyanogen. Steve is still alive and breathing https://twitter.com/cyanogen https://twitter.com/cyanogen
- hackuser 10y ago> bringing customization and features far beyond those available in the stock OS. I looked into custom ROMs (i.e., Android forks) and that wasn't my experience. They took AOSP (Android Open Source Project), made some mostly cosmetic changes, and distributed it. CopperheadOS might be an exception.
- optforfon 10y agoGoogle controls Android due to the PlayStore Just an anecdote. I'm currently living in China and me and the other expats were always kinda amused that local Chinese are willing to spend the equivalent of 2 months of their salary on an iPhone. Apple's grip on the market is absolute here At first, like some high brow NYT journalist, I thought it must be a cultural thing. People looking for a status thing, a vanity thing in a image conscious society. Or a the very least they're willing to fork over tons of cash to get a good quality device bc they don't trust their own phone makers. But the local phones are actually hardware-wise okay. And they have decent warranty support (not Apple level.. but still) But after watching a friend struggle with an Android phone, I realized that the problem is the apps. There is no GooglePlay store, just crappy 3rd party stores like the Xiaomi Store. These stores have basically no standards when it comes to app quality and Chinese apps are horrible bloated virus-like monstrosities that slowly cripple your phone till it barely works and the battery dies after half a day. All the permissions managers and security features in the world don't stop the system from being a complete disaster here. If anyone wants to free Android - they need to make a good play-store alternative that only allows high quality apps. They you can make your Android fork and whatever else you want
- frik 10y agoMy Android phone was practically dead in China.* My iPhone worked completely fine. And like everyone use an iPhone 7 and an AppleWatch 2 in tier 1 cities. And the rest of China seem to use non-Google Android phones with a different AppStore. * not even connecting to WiFi worked, as it tries to connect to a Google domain to check, which is blocked. (iPhone connects to apple.com to check, though that domain works fine)
- jaimex2 10y agoGoogle refused to indulge China's oppressive dictatorial laws with search. Apple follows similar ideals so they work well together.