Steve Kondik, founder of CyanogenMod (the community ROM) and Cyanogen Inc. (the company):
CyanogenMod is something that works. Perhaps it doesn’t need to “go big” to work. I’m still wildly inspired by the idea of a platform which forces participation. Whether it’s the choice to hack your phone to bits and figure out how to install the damn thing to begin with, learning what’s possible afterwards, or just having the confidence of being in control, it still serves an important role which hasn’t been filled outside of the custom ROM community. Cyanogen Inc (including myself) will still be sponsoring the project and will continue to have an active role in it’s development. Contrary to popular belief, we are not “pivoting to apps” nor are we shelving CM. We’ll have additional information on the Inc site soon.
Good news for CyanogenMod (the ROM), but communications in the vein of “the company is not going down, honest!” usually precede the company going down.
This saga has not stopped from being told… Small communities dependent on huge projects upstream. Wishing them the best outcomes at these difficult times.
I suppose CyanogenMod isn’t such a purely distilled Evil after all…
Has anyone of you ever tried it?
You might change your mind.
There’s nothing wrong with Cyanogenmod. I’ve been using Cyanogenmod for years and years, first on my Galaxy Note 1 and now on the LG G2, and I sure am glad that CM exists. LG’s ROMs are buggy, full of bloatware and vulnerabilities, but with CM my phone is still perfectly useable and running latest Android.
The problem with modern cyanogenmod ( the free android version), is that they continue to prioritize modifications to AOSP over releasing newer versions of android. I really liked it when it meant I could move to something closer to AOSP on a common handset that wasn’t directly supported by AOSP. Now? Well, nexus is good available and cheap. No need to put up with the delays caused by useless features ( like themes! Freaking Theme engine delayed their releases!).
It served a purpose at one time. Now, even Koushik Dutta ( a co-founder of cyanogen INC) admits he just uses stock firmwares.
It still serves a purpose for all of those people who wish to keep using the phones they already have. Nexus is all fine and dandy, but only if you’re getting a new phone — it doesn’t do jack shit for those of us who still have perfectly functional phones and who aren’t planning on upgrading any time soon.
I got my first taste of CM back when I had my Motorola Droid X2. That was CM7. I really enjoyed it. Tried it off and on up until CM11. I sort of lost interest when they went corporate, especially when MS started contributing. Perhaps that is unjustified but that uneasy feeling started to hit me back then. Maybe it was justified after all?
Similar experience to mine .. I started using CM when it was still froyo based (CM 7?) on my LG Optimus One; still used CM on my galaxy nexus even though it was getting a bit too heavy (I hardly ever used the stock android on that phone), but when I bought the Nexus 5, Android 5 was available and I saw no reason not to use stock firmware.
I haven’t played with CM for several years now, I do not know how it is currently, but I had the same feeling of uneasiness when Cyanogen incorporated. At the time I had already moved to another lighter custom ROM but the idea of a free community ROM managed by the same company selling a custom ROM to manufacturers never sounded right to me.
Back in the days, CM really pushed Google to add missing features (customisation mainly) to Android and that is something they had to be thanked for. I’m not really in favour of their sudden commercial evolution, but that’s me, not a general rule.
1) They’re switching to Windows Phone as their platform of choice a la Nokia.
2) They going to be bought out by MS and produce CM by Microsoft which will be a branded version of Android and the upgrade path for Windows Phone users.
3) Cyanogen is going on an extended vacation to some country without an extradition treaty with the US to party like it’s 1999 with what’s left of the VC money.
The Wonder Years
Is that how it ends?
There is probably room in Moscow alongside you know who. There again Moscow is expensive and that VC money won’t last that long.
I hope they return to what made them popular. IF they don’t then the future is as bleak as Nokia’s.
Hate to say it but you have been wrong with predictions about companies going bust before. Especially in the U.S. it is exceptionally easy to shake off debt using Chapter 11.
Sounds a lot like “Focus Shift” to me.
Latest CyanongenMod releases were plain broken on my Nexus 5. Lots of battery consumption(even after wipes and installing little software + using gapps pico), unexpected crashes. This product(CM) is decreasing it’s quality day after day, and that’s why i’m giving a try on Dirty Unicorns and you know what? No more getting pissed of with my phone.
I hope they bring quality to CM again.
Most of CM is volunteers, so if the company stopped supporting it, everyone would fork off and continue doing what they’re doing! The new replacement organizations and software distributions might even be better than CM.