4 ms·

I've been a fan of CyanogenMod for years. My brother and I ported ICS [1] and Jelly Bean [2] versions of CM back to the original HTC G1. I've run it on every

I've been a fan of CyanogenMod for years. My brother and I ported ICS [1] and Jelly Bean [2] versions of CM back to the original HTC G1. I've run it on every phone I've ever owned, and even had my parents running it for a time. But it's hard to reconcile some of the public blunders that Cyanogen has made since becoming a company. Their OEM relationships with Oppo, OnePlus and Micromax seem haphazard and volatile, and it's not clear they present any real advantages to the consumer. As far as I know, the Oppo N1 isn't supported anymore, and while the OnePlus One is theoretically still supported at least in some markets, Jelly Bean is nowhere to be found, and OnePlus is off doing their own ROMs now. Distractions like Nextbit's "Baton"[3] (a risky bet on an idea that doesn't appear to work with the majority of apps) leave me wondering what Cyanogen's real value proposition is. It will be interesting to see where this is headed, and I hope CM remains faithful to their core community and support the maintainers that keep bringing to CM to the masses. [1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/24/2584340/android-4-0-aosp-ported-to-the-htc-g1-in-alpha-form http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/24/2584340/android-4-0-aosp-... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/3229163/android-4-1-ported-to-the-venerable-htc-g1 http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/3229163/android-4-1-ported-... [3] https://nextbit.com/about/ https://nextbit.com/about/

INTPenis 12y ago
Well put. Stock android is actually much more stable than the CM that ships with OnePlus. At least imho. A friend is already selling his, after about 6 months with the phone. I haven't had it much longer but long enough to clearly see that stock android up to 4 offered much better usability. The bugs I endure in the OnePlus just because I am sick of switching phones every year are borderline insufferable.
- Cyph0n 12y ago
  I'm actually planning on buying one and now you make me worried. What are the bugs you're encountering?
  - INTPenis 12y ago
    Ok get ready for a rant about 1st world problems. It seems confused about sound. I had to uninstall Google Play completely so my official JBL OnePlus headset wouldn't start playing music in Google Play instead of Spotify. These issues continued when I made my first audio recording. I was at the doctors and recorded the meeting, after that every time I try to play music from my headset it starts that audio recording. Even though the audio recording program is closed several reboots ago. Workaround is to open the phone, start spotify playing, pause, then I can use the headset as normal. The worst bugs in a phone are bugs in the actual phone feature, imo. And in my case CM seems confused about the screen when I'm in a conversation. It's supposed to darken when I move the screen to my ear but it never lights up again when I move the phone away from my ear. Often I have to unlock the phone to end a call. The headset also seems unable to end calls, only answer them. Waking up it's very sluggish, sometimes unresponsive. It has this "knock knock" feature where it wakes up if you tap the screen twice. This feature worked for a day or two when it was new, then stopped working for several weeks until I tried installing a stock android image on it and failed, reverted to CM and then the knock-knock worked again. Even though the knocking works to wake it up, it often will not accept input for those first few taps after it wakes up so you end up having to erase your unlock code and start over a lot. And speaking of stock android. Since none of my friends with stock android phones, nor me with my Nexus 7 at home, seemed to suffer these issues I decided to try the official stock android images from OnePlus. I ended up in a reboot loop issue that has been reported on the bug tracker and on the forums. The problem is that I can't have my sim lock on if I want to install the android image because then it keeps rebooting the phone as soon as I unlock it. So I had to revert back to CM because I didn't feel like disabling the sim lock was a good option. I could probably go on if you give me some time to think about it, there are definitely more bugs that I have experienced in my short time with this phone. On a personal note, I was intrigued by CM because I am a FOSS junkie and know that it's a fork of android. I've had phones like the N900, ZTE Firefox OS and Jolla in the past. I love ideas like Replicant. So you understand why I bought the OnePlus. But in retrospect I should have just gotten an Xperia or an HTC since they have both provided models with unlocked boot loaders and Sony have even opened up their Android source code.
    - 12y ago
drobati 12y ago
I'm running CM12 on my OnePlus One right now and it's fantastic but I totally agree. There are a few other roms out there that I'm thinking about flashing. I guess I should mention that I did have lots of bugs with CM11 but CM12 is running really stable for me. It's touch is way more responsive. I also used Lollipop on Nexus 5 before I bought my OnePlus One and that was a bit more solid of an experience.
cbd1984 12y ago
CM also phones home on an opt-out basis, and they even wanted to remove the option to opt-out. They also still give data to Google. https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-removes-tracking-opt-out-reverses-decision-still-uses-google-analytics/ https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-...
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  I'd say it's more important that most CM installations include play services, which is doing who knows what in the background. But at least the changes above are open source, and you can see what's going on. Or if they go too far, someone else can pick up the baton and move on. It's becoming more difficult for that to happen from stock Android, as more functionality and applications become reliant on play services, which can ultimately only be installed on terms set by Google.
72deluxe 12y ago
I hadn't even heard of those devices. I used to use Cyanogenmod on my G1, as 2.1 wasn't officially supported. I also put it on my HTC Desire but the need to do it became less when newer devices properly supported WiFi and Bluetooth tethering. I do not see how further fragmentation of the Android system (that is, additional markets) is a good thing when Amazon market / Google Play / endless Chinese markets are all around. Given the scope for malware in unchecked markets, another market and distributor surely isn't a good thing. Additionally, what major phone manufacturers and carriers are going to go with this? If Android devices do not come with Google products (GMail / YouTube / Maps / Hangouts), are the devices as useful? I think not.

INTPenis 12y ago

Well put. Stock android is actually much more stable than the CM that ships with OnePlus. At least imho. A friend is already selling his, after about 6 months with the phone. I haven't had it much longer but long enough to clearly see that stock android up to 4 offered much better usability. The bugs I endure in the OnePlus just because I am sick of switching phones every year are borderline insufferable.

Cyph0n 12y ago
I'm actually planning on buying one and now you make me worried. What are the bugs you're encountering?
- INTPenis 12y ago
  Ok get ready for a rant about 1st world problems. It seems confused about sound. I had to uninstall Google Play completely so my official JBL OnePlus headset wouldn't start playing music in Google Play instead of Spotify. These issues continued when I made my first audio recording. I was at the doctors and recorded the meeting, after that every time I try to play music from my headset it starts that audio recording. Even though the audio recording program is closed several reboots ago. Workaround is to open the phone, start spotify playing, pause, then I can use the headset as normal. The worst bugs in a phone are bugs in the actual phone feature, imo. And in my case CM seems confused about the screen when I'm in a conversation. It's supposed to darken when I move the screen to my ear but it never lights up again when I move the phone away from my ear. Often I have to unlock the phone to end a call. The headset also seems unable to end calls, only answer them. Waking up it's very sluggish, sometimes unresponsive. It has this "knock knock" feature where it wakes up if you tap the screen twice. This feature worked for a day or two when it was new, then stopped working for several weeks until I tried installing a stock android image on it and failed, reverted to CM and then the knock-knock worked again. Even though the knocking works to wake it up, it often will not accept input for those first few taps after it wakes up so you end up having to erase your unlock code and start over a lot. And speaking of stock android. Since none of my friends with stock android phones, nor me with my Nexus 7 at home, seemed to suffer these issues I decided to try the official stock android images from OnePlus. I ended up in a reboot loop issue that has been reported on the bug tracker and on the forums. The problem is that I can't have my sim lock on if I want to install the android image because then it keeps rebooting the phone as soon as I unlock it. So I had to revert back to CM because I didn't feel like disabling the sim lock was a good option. I could probably go on if you give me some time to think about it, there are definitely more bugs that I have experienced in my short time with this phone. On a personal note, I was intrigued by CM because I am a FOSS junkie and know that it's a fork of android. I've had phones like the N900, ZTE Firefox OS and Jolla in the past. I love ideas like Replicant. So you understand why I bought the OnePlus. But in retrospect I should have just gotten an Xperia or an HTC since they have both provided models with unlocked boot loaders and Sony have even opened up their Android source code.
  - 12y ago

drobati 12y ago

I'm running CM12 on my OnePlus One right now and it's fantastic but I totally agree. There are a few other roms out there that I'm thinking about flashing. I guess I should mention that I did have lots of bugs with CM11 but CM12 is running really stable for me. It's touch is way more responsive. I also used Lollipop on Nexus 5 before I bought my OnePlus One and that was a bit more solid of an experience.

cbd1984 12y ago

CM also phones home on an opt-out basis, and they even wanted to remove the option to opt-out. They also still give data to Google. https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-removes-tracking-opt-out-reverses-decision-still-uses-google-analytics/ https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-...

Brakenshire 12y ago
I'd say it's more important that most CM installations include play services, which is doing who knows what in the background. But at least the changes above are open source, and you can see what's going on. Or if they go too far, someone else can pick up the baton and move on. It's becoming more difficult for that to happen from stock Android, as more functionality and applications become reliant on play services, which can ultimately only be installed on terms set by Google.

72deluxe 12y ago

I hadn't even heard of those devices. I used to use Cyanogenmod on my G1, as 2.1 wasn't officially supported. I also put it on my HTC Desire but the need to do it became less when newer devices properly supported WiFi and Bluetooth tethering. I do not see how further fragmentation of the Android system (that is, additional markets) is a good thing when Amazon market / Google Play / endless Chinese markets are all around. Given the scope for malware in unchecked markets, another market and distributor surely isn't a good thing. Additionally, what major phone manufacturers and carriers are going to go with this? If Android devices do not come with Google products (GMail / YouTube / Maps / Hangouts), are the devices as useful? I think not.