back to article Cyanogen mods self away from full Android alternative

Android alternative Cyanogen looks to have given up on trying to sell a full mobile operating system. The shine has gone off the outfit of late, and in July, it reportedly axed 30 staffers. While there's a core of users who stick with the CyanogenMod code that's the genesis of the company, mobe-makers taking Cyanogen licenses …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There's a definite market ...

    ... for smart phones that are free of stasiware, at least on the handset side.

    Time to fork away from the money men who may have other ideas.

    1. james 68

      Re: There's a definite market ...

      Did you miss the part where Cyanogen is in bed with Microsoft?

      The Microsoft part is bad enough, and it is bad, the corruption is tied very deeply into the OS (http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/22/11092050/cyanogen-microsoft-android-apps-integration), but what really scratches my scrotes is how the Cyanogen team are profiting off of outside devs who released their work as opensource, in some cases to directly help Cyanogen pre-sellout and in some cases currently when they add to the free CyanogenMod project. They are a "company" who directly profits from the work of others and they don't so much as say "thank you".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's a definite market ...

        Funny, my Cyanogen OS phone (Wileyfox Storm) doesn't have any MS apps at all, except for Skype that I installed myself from the Play Store. No Cortana, no OneNote, nothing. Certainly doesn't feel like MS is "tied very deeply" into my phone.

        1. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: There's a definite market ...

          It suggests MS apps in the Open With dialog but apart from that I haven't seen anything either.

      2. Lee D Silver badge

        Re: There's a definite market ...

        I have to say, it's hard to sell something that's free unless you add value.

        They obviously are NOT adding value. You can just buy a normal phone, slap CyanogenMod on it, and pretty much you have a Cyanogen phone. Any unwanted "extras" on it could well be in Cyanogen as well, so you gain nothing by paying. And, as you point out, most of the features and development are coming from people giving their stuff away to the open-source project anyway.

        I can't say that I feel sorry for anyone here - I'm an open-source coder myself. You write the code for the love of the code, not so that some company can / cannot steal it. If you wanted the company to exclusively benefit from it, you'd sell it to them. If you wanted to keep it out of that companies hands, you'd licence it so they couldn't use it. That you licenced it liberally so EVERYONE could have it, including the company that might benefit from it and then sell it on - almost "as their own" even if they don't explicitly do that - means you volunteered that scenario be possible.

        I don't think Cyanogen are particularly scummy here. They could have been an awful lot worse. But I also think that because they've not added ANY value to their commercial offering, that's why it's flopped bad enough they can't make money.

        The Microsoft parts? Not really interested. Every phone manufacturer does it. That an "open" one selling a closed product does it? Well surprise me sideways. Who'd have thunk?

        Guess what the only survivor will be out of the mess? The open-source code. Maybe not even the name, certainly not their own phones, or their company. There's a reason that open-source code is so highly valued. And I've never heard of anyone use their products except the results of the open-source project.

        1. AMBxx Silver badge
          Windows

          Re: There's a definite market ...

          I'd pay just to have an easier way to install it. My Nexus 7 is now stuck on an old version of Cyanogen. I'm sure if I was an Android expert, I could fix it. As it is, I just see a picture of a robot on its back.

          All the documentation seems to reach a point where it says 'wave a magic wand' as soon as it gets complicated. Where's the step by step?

          If they spent more time on documentation and less on silly pictures, might be more widespread.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: There's a definite market ...

            All the documentation seems to reach a point where it says 'wave a magic wand' as soon as it gets complicated. Where's the step by step?

            Even when you find that for a popular handset, there's loads of steps involving multiple software packages, each and every step of which can go wrong. And if I can't get it to work, and ICBA to work out why the damned complicated process won't work, then what's the chance that Joe Average will be able to figure it out?

            It really is unsurprising that CM isn't at all popular. Offer me a proper, one button install and I'd pay, ooh, twenty quid. Which is an infinite amount more than CM currently get from after-market installations.

            1. Richard 81

              Re: There's a definite market ...

              So much this!

              Sell a package that figures out what the connected phone is, grabs the latest ROM, sets up the bootloader and does all the flashing malarkey and I'd pay, say, £40.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's a definite market ...

      What's up at CM, did Microsoft turn off the cash tap ? Hilarious MS can't even get someone else's mobile OS up and running let alone their own, however this may have something to do with the gentlemen's agreement Google and MS had a few months ago.

      http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/digital-business/microsoft-google-call-a-truce-on-lawsuits/d/d-id/1325240

      Same old Microsoft and the use of proxies, SCO anyone ?

      1. Dan Wilkie

        Re: There's a definite market ...

        Remind me to introduce you to David Icke - I think the two of you would get along really well!

  2. DonL

    McMaster

    McMaster kind of destroyed the opportunity for them by making wild statements and overplaying his hand.

    I don't see how they are going to regain trust again.

  3. Peter 26

    They screwed over OnePlus now no other company would risk working with them

    They set a precedent when they screwed over OnePlus and left them hanging with no OS. They made themselves a very hard sell to other phone companies.

    What's even worse is if they had carried on with OnePlus it would have been a fantastic example of a success story with their OS. Other phone manufactures would have wished to replicate the success of OnePlus.

    They shot themselves in the foot.

    1. Dr. Mouse

      Re: They screwed over OnePlus now no other company would risk working with them

      I have to agree. OnePlus had not choice but to create their own OS due to Cyanogen's ridiculous license switcharoo. Why would anyone license an OS when they could be told, a few months later, "Sorry, but you can't sell that in <insert country here> any more, as we've licensed it exclusively to someone else. Bad luck, old chum!"

      Personally, I think that their lack of success comes down to this (screwing over a very successful licensee) more than any of the other factors here.

      1. Paul Shirley

        Re: They screwed over OnePlus now no other company would risk working with them

        There were enough reports of flaky cyanogen releases on Oneplus that I'm not 100% convinced there was a success story there anyway. Further tainted by the hardware issues making it harder to tell what was actually broken.

    2. leon clarke

      OnePlus

      Massively agree.

      OnePlus is a lot more significant than their sales numbers suggest - among technical Android users it's the only alternative worth considering to a Nexus/Pixel. So its influence on important people in the Android ecosystem is massive.

      If you were to assemble a team to do something like WileyFox, when you got them together to start work, half will have Nexus phones and the other half OnePlus. So everyone who matters will know about OnePlus's OS and consider it the right way to do non-Nexus android.

  4. jason 7

    My other half hated it...

    ...so much she changed OS. An update would happen every few months and it would totally change all the settings she had set on her phone.

    Cyanogen was so boastful about all its customizations that it was deciding to override any user customizations with its updates.

    That's not really how it works guys.

    1. quxinot

      Re: My other half hated it...

      Why not? That's how it's done by the big players!

      Of course, the vast majority of clue-bearing users would like to apply crowbars to the kneecaps of those who don't leave their settings alone during updates....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @quxinot

        What "big players" are resetting all your settings when you get an update? I don't see that from Apple or Microsoft (OK, aside from the whole GWX fiasco)

    2. Paul Shirley

      Re: My other half hated it...

      It's always been a PIA that AOSP roms have made so little effort to gracefully support upgrading. Hot installs of the updates to the same major version usually work. Anything else needs a full wipe and even app backups often fail. Stock Android is getting good enough to make that a serious disincentive to use them.

    3. David Harper 1

      Re: My other half hated it...

      Worse still, the most recent Cyanogen update removed the ability to disable a specific SIM card in dual-SIM phones like the WileyFox Storm and Swift. The option simply vanished from Settings. This makes WileyFox phones much less attractive to anyone who plans to use the dual-SIM capability whilst travelling abroad.

      1. Ol' Grumpy
        Pint

        Re: My other half hated it...

        "Worse still, the most recent Cyanogen update removed the ability to disable a specific SIM card in dual-SIM phones like the WileyFox Storm and Swift. The option simply vanished from Settings."

        Thank you for mentioning this. I thought I was going mad as I couldn't find the option on my Swift following a recent update.

        Have a beer!

      2. Gerry 3
        WTF?

        Re: My other half hated it...

        On a Wileyfox Swift you can choose which SIM to use on a call by call by call basis, so what's the problem? The only catch is that it's not a true dual SIM phone because only one SIM can be used with 3G, which is a problem if both SIMs are on Three.

        And it has a removable battery !

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  6. DainB Bronze badge

    Cyanogen sweeteners ?

    What are you talking about ? What Cyanogen sweeteners are there that can't be implemented as an apk install ?

  7. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    What with Samsung taking a triple whammy (two flaming flagships, washing machines and the Apple lawsuit) things may be not what they seem... it may be possible that other smartphone pushers may take a look at Cyanogen as alternative since Sammy won't be that active in the market for a while.

    The IT market is a funny thing that is not easy to understand... especially when it comes to widdle wobots and iThings...

  8. PaulR79
    Mushroom

    Long may their downfall continue

    I was a user of CyanogenMod from the G1 but it increasingly took on a "we know best" mentality up to the millions of <currency> they received when they launched as a company. It always felt like taking advantage of a massive amount of contributions and trying to profit off them and the whole OnePlus mess left a sour taste that will never go away for me. It's a shame because at one point it was the only way I would consider rooting and installing a custom ROM.

  9. Crazy Operations Guy

    Why are they a commercial entity anyway?

    I had always assumed that CM would just duplicate the Linux model in that it becomes a non-profit that has minimal staff but is largely controlled by a community of volunteers.

    1. Old Handle

      Re: Why are they a commercial entity anyway?

      Someone got $$ in their eyes I think. A small commercial wing of the project could have worked out well, but I'm definitely getting the feeling it's more parasitic than symbiotic in this case.

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