Cyanogen Gets a New CEO, Shifts Away From Selling a Full Mobile Operating System (techcrunch.com) 49
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Cyanogen, a startup behind its own, alternative version of the Android operating system, now has a new CEO. In the wake of reports that the company exaggerated its success in terms of active users, layoffs, and difficulties scaling, Cyanogen's co-founder and CEO Kirt McMaster will be transitioning into an "Executive Chairman" role, while Lior Tal, previously COO, will now assume the CEO position. In addition, Steve Kondik, Cyanogen's co-founder and CTO, will be taking on a new role as Chief Science Officer, the company announced. He will report Stephen Lawler, the company's SVP of Engineering. Today's blog post from new CEO Tal also somewhat acknowledged the company's struggles, and announced plans to shift in its business model with the launch of a new Cyanogen Modular OS program. "in recent years, Android and the mobile ecosystem changed," wrote Tal. "Android has become extremely fragmented causing serious security vulnerabilities and few or no incentives to device manufacturers to deliver software upgrades and/or security patches," he said. "Increased demand for lower-priced smartphones, coupled with the specifications arms race, has left manufacturers focused on scale and efficiency while compromising investment in software and services. Innovation cannot happen in a vacuum, which is what we have today," Tal added. The company will be moving away from its former model which involved it shipping the full-stack of the operating system, the company says. Its new program will instead allows manufacturers to introduce their own, customizable smartphones that use different parts of the Cyanogen OS via dynamic modules and MODs, while still using the ROM of their choice. That means they could still run stock Android on their devices, then pick and choose the pieces of Cyanogen's technology they want to also add. The full Cyanogen OS is still available and being sold, but is no longer the main focus. In July, Cyanogen Inc. laid off 20 percent of its workforce and sent a letter from McMaster to employees admitting that, despite shipping millions of devices with its OS, was "not scaling fast enough nor in an efficient manner."
Okay.... (Score:3)
Re: Okay.... (Score:1)
Microsoft so far makes the best Android development tools complete with emulators with visual studio. No you did not misread that!
Check out the vs 2015 community edition for yourself. However, Android emulators use Hyper-V so it will not run in virtual box for the Linux users reading this you will need kms or VMware set to nested or embedded machine type.
Anyway, MS purchased cyanogen because they see the writting on the wall with Windows Phone on life support. They also want to remain relevant with millenn
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Umm.... No. I'm going to assume you weren't being sarcastic and actually treat that post with some degree of seriousness:
Microsoft so far makes the best Android development tools complete with emulators with visual studio.
The best Android development tools is Android Studio. You are smoking crack cocaine, which is illegal around the world. Seek help.
Anyway, MS purchased cyanogen....
Anyway, they didn't do that.
MS wants MS Android or at least their own app store on Android phones.
Considering that Cyanogen
Fragmented ecosystems (Score:1)
Yeah, the purported security benefits of heterogeneous systems don't fully apply here. Different android versions are still getting a lot of common code on top of them with google play services incorporating more components to help deal with various vendors not offering updates. Speaking of updates, how many stagefright fixes posted now, and how many vendors not keeping up anyway?
The Death of Cyanogenmod.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they stop releasing unmolested pure open OS images then what good are they going to be?
If I cant rip out the Craptastic shitpile that Samsung has in the phone as well as the crap that AT&T shovels in and get it back to a pure android with optional enhancements that they are known for then I dont see where they will go.
Cyanogenmod was the ONLY highly trusted alternative to make an android phone back into a decent device. It was the only way I was able to make the HTC One M8 into something tolerable and get rid of that craptastic "sense" that they force on you.
I really hope the CEO is mis quoted, because the Cyaongenmod OS images are what make android phones great.
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At least they are still alive as an organization. They still offer the full OS, but they now understand "the game" of phone manufacturers wanting some control over the OS.
If they can add some privacy and anti-bloat features to otherwise stock OS from a manufacturer that has decent marketshare, they might grow enough to influence Android in a better way for users.
You'd think device makers would want to focus on the hardware and supply side of things and contract out the OS and software parts - but so far the
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They get more money off the crapware than they make from the phone. This is the main reason people buy iPhones. I'm even tempted but I refuse to buy a phone without removable battery and an SD card slot. When there are no more premium Android phones with removable batteries and sd cards then I'll have no more reason to buy Android. The funny thing is I wanted a Note 7 but when I went to get it I found you couldn't remove the battery I rejected it. My wife thinks I'm a genius now. :)
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The Android eco system is a complicated one. There was a previous article about Torvalds preferring x86 to ARM and the reasons he states directly relate to Android fragmentation. Kernels are often highly customized for each ARM board, where as with the x86 architecture, you're pretty much guaranteed a certain basic architecture stack.
I wrote a post on Android fragmentation a while back: http://penguindreams.org/blog/android-fragmentation/
Re: The Death of Cyanogenmod.... (Score:2)
Nexus my brother or I should say Pixel. Pure build and unlocked for any carrier
Makes me glad I have a Nexus (Score:1)
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Can you at least use an OTG cable to connect external storage to a Nexus phone? We know you lose your option to have an SD slot for expansion storage...
Re: Makes me glad I have a Nexus (Score:2)
It's 2016 man. Who needs that? USB type C is thunderbolt with a USB protocol. It can transfer 18 gigs a freaking second! 64 gigs of storage on my 6P can hold many movies.
Also we have the cloud today too and streaming
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While the 6P does have a type C connector it only support USB 2.x transfers, it doesn't support Thunderbolt (which is an alternative protocol, not USB based at all) nor USB 3.x. In other words the maximum transfer rate is 480Mbps.
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Actually they are pretty much one now [cnet.com]?
You have Windows 7?
You need Windows 8 or higher for full USB 3 speeds. Also a new Skylake will have full type C speed. Even at 480 MBS it is faster than the transfer rate of a an SD unless you have a specialty one made for cameras.
No need anymore still.
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... nor a Thunderbolt one.
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What does Cyanogenmod still offer? (Score:3)
Seriously not trying to troll. With the granular privacy settings in stock, what does Cyanogenmod really offer over AOSP now?
Seems the best option would be a new team that focuses on making a stable AOSP that's updatable and supports a variety of hardware other then the Nexus line, may it RIP.
Re:What does Cyanogenmod still offer? (Score:4, Informative)
With the granular privacy settings in stock, what does Cyanogenmod really offer over AOSP now?
Fast forward and rewind by long-pressing the volume buttons. I still miss that. Ultimately I ditched CM when the phone functionality of my previous phone stopped working [cyanogenmod.org] for an extended period of time.
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They offer not having all the shit and crapware that Samsung/Sony/LG/HTC install that you cannot get rid of. The speed on my Sony was night and day from stock to Cyanogen. They pretty much offer a stock AOSP experience, plus a couple of nice UI and general features (that don't kill performance) and that's it.
It's like when you could do a clean install of XP and get rid of all the Dell/Gateway/HP rubbish. But we can't do that with Android.
I'd like to see an Android release that requires all manufactures to u
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That idea sounds great, but it doesn't work with the current paradigm of "It's our phone, you're just paying us for the privilege of using it."
That's the most toxic aspect of the current mobile device environment. Doesn't even matter if you buy the phone outright, many carriers/handset makers choose to use permanently locked bootloaders or otherwise obfuscate the process of installing a custom ROM.
Add to that every device has wildly different drivers/hardware supported only by the handset makers themselves
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It goes one step further than the stock privacy settings, you can feed in fake data so apps that don't work with out permissions still work.
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Seriously not trying to troll. With the granular privacy settings in stock, what does Cyanogenmod really offer over AOSP now?
Seems the best option would be a new team that focuses on making a stable AOSP that's updatable and supports a variety of hardware other then the Nexus line, may it RIP.
How about transforming into an Android upgrade company, which enables anyone to take a phone or tablet and upgrade it to the latest rev of Android allowed by the configuration limits? And try and cover every device globally?
Here's an example: I have an Ellipsis 10, which currently runs Lollypop. It currently allows me up to 32GB of SD card, and 16GB internally. I'd like to upgrade it to Marshmallow, so that I can put in, say, a 256GB SD card and make that the main storage. Currently, nothing out there
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so continues.. (Score:1)
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CM lost all credibility when it did two things, and nobody will trust them after that.
1) Microsoft deal
2) Screwed OnePlus over
As for #1, why would anybody trust CM after making a deal with the devil, in an attempt to wrest control of Android from Google. Especially to Microsoft?
As for #2, why would any Vendor trust CM after they tossed aside one (if not their first) customer for "big market in India" (one that never really panned out no less).
Sorry, but CM did this to themselves, by burning whatever good wi
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
... Linux doesn't "have" a CEO.
Bottom line: should have stayed a community supported effort. As soon as they got a CEO I promptly nuked everything CM related I had.
It is astonishing what people will put up with.
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Don't let him [wikipedia.org] hear you, or he'll have another tantrum.
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On the second one, debatable. On the first, chacun to his goat, as Del Boy might say.
Cyanogen is stagnant. (Score:2)
Most devices don't get a stable Cyanogen release for years if ever. I still rock a HTC One M8, a very capable and reliable device that I haven't felt the need to move away from yet and Cyanogen has made almost no effort to fix the bugs in their release for it. I'm happy I didn't have to pay for it, because it honestly wouldn't be worth paying for given the fact that they abandon projects so quickly and without notice.
They face (Score:1)
It is open source, they require community feedback and support. We are used to everything working on desktop Linux now but once upon a time every regular user had to know modprobe, arguments in /etc , chmod just to get sound from their PC on Linux. I still remember IO address and IRQ of my sound card.
I am not saying it is your fault or submit patches. Cyanogen got into this death spiral because at some point, they lost one thing that runs it. Community. Android community hates them. Just 2 years ago people
They have lost their community (Score:1)
Apologies, /. mobile always puts Firefox into some uncontrollable CPU load so subject got terrorised by autocorrect and submitted.