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CyanogenMod: the History of an Android Hack
An anonymous reader points out a Wired story about some of the efforts behind CyanogenMod, a popular piece of Android modification software. Quoting:
"CyanogenMod expanded into a team of 35 different 'device maintainers,' who manage the code for the 32 different devices that the project supports. Like Google, the team publishes its code to an online repository and accepts online submissions for changes to the code from other developers. Seven core members decide which of the submitted changes make it into the next release of CyanogenMod, and which don’t. ... Ultimately, CyanogenMod aspires to be more than just a software mod. 'I think one of our biggest dreams is to see a phone ship with Cyanogen on it,' says Soyars. But pairing the software with a phone is no easy task. First, CyanogenMod would have to pass the tests required by Google’s certification program in order to bundle Google’s proprietary apps — Gmail, Calendar, etc. — on the phone."
I would say 35 for 32 devices is not really enough. There is a lot of testing and development, porting that needs to happen.
Also, hardware fragmentation isn't really fragmentation, Its choice.
Android fragmentation usually refers to the pathetic fact that many phones don't get their system updates ported on time (or at all), thus leaving a platform with multiple major OS versions around.
If you are going to troll, at least do it right. :P
I've been using CM7 on my Samsung Captivate for roughly two months now and the change between it and the ROM Samsung/AT&T make available is astounding: A) GPS actually works. On my stock eclair ROM it'd take upwards of a few minutes to get a lock if ever. B) Stock eclair/froyo would give you 3G at best. The Captivate is capable of HSDPA which CM7 offers (but to be fair all you'd really need to do is flash a compatible radio firmware to enable this on stock ROMs). C) Instead of randomly shutting itself off during the day and night, CM7 keeps on ticking 24/7 unless something catastrophic happens. D) I'm not 100% what filesystems each use, but the stock filesystem causes a well known very noticeable lag that CM7 doesn't have. E) Easily modified for Netflix usage. F) None of those god awful AT&T apps forced upon stock ROM users. I hated those with my Palm Treo 680 and I still hate them. To be fair most, if not all, custom roms are capable of the above. I have used others but typically found that my device would continue to randomly shut itself off, though this might be fixed by virtue of having gingerbread instead of eclair.
Congrats to the whole CyanogenMod team. Even if the numbers show that CM users are the minority, I think its a pretty damn good project. I love my CyanogenMod enabled phone :)
I am happy to be able to get a phone that is unlockable by design, and put an alternate mod on it that provides me with features that a stock OS doesn't. Thanks CM team! :)
Do you mean the iDroid Project? As far as I know it doesn't even work on most iphones. You can check the progress here.
The calendar is weak, I want more view options, how many days ahead can I see, setting the start and end time of the day so I can see 8:00am till say 9:00pm in a single window snapshot. Things like that.
I've taken to installing one called "Business Calendar Free" but it's not quite right either.
Does google ever update it's apps or do they just assume users will swap to third party applications so they only do a basic one?
P.S I was going to link to the Android marketplace to show the calendar app I'm using but oddly enough it's not in the list of devices on my handset, no idea why - this kind of inconsistency is frustrating with Android, I think I should just switch back to Appbrain and forget Market.Android at this point
I have installed CM7 twice:
- Once on my brother's X10 mini pro. The thing was barely usable before, extremely slow, bloated crapware... With CM7 it feels like a new phone, much snappier, and with a much better interface and software portfolio.
- On my own WinMob 6.5 HTC HD2. More to check if it actually worked than to really use it, I am quite happy with WinMob since I don't do anything fancy with my phone. Well, strike that. I now run android all the time. The interface is much better, so are the apps... I only miss winmob's RDP server.
So kudos, and thanks, to the CM team. Phone manufacturers should pay you, or at least help you. You breathe new life into old and clunky phones.
One remark though, being totally new to modding phones, I struggled a bit with the instructions on the XDA-Dev site. The hackers there assume some knowledge of modding (how to boot in "Flash Update" mode, installing the root...). Following 10 lines of instructions for the X10 install took me about 3hrs, lots of cold sweat... but worked on the first try.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
It's the opposite of fragmentation. 35 people manage 32 devices, yes, but the rom looks and feels the same on every phone. 35 people are required because usually a developer only has one or two phones.
AFAIK, one of the proprietary apps is Android Market. Without that, you don't get buyers. Without buyers, no profit, no phone.
What?
Likewise, roughly one person is all it takes to maintain the software side of Android for a model phone. So, why can't hardware makers come out with updates in a timely manner? They use their programmers working on the bloated crap like HTC's Sense that nobody wants.
My old HTC Hero (October '09) was pretty slow and difficult to use until I rooted it and went with other ROMs. HTC barely came out with Android 2.1, several months late. Then they stopped development, since it was too old. With Cyanogenmod, I was able to get a lot more use out of it going into Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).
Yes Cyanogen is great, I run it on an Android phone or two and love it to bits. But that's not really the point...
The question here was about shipping a phone with CM preloaded, and that comes down to a number of business concerns.
In order to get the real penetration that this would need to get off the ground, CM would obviously need to pair up with a hardware OEM in order to get a handset crafted (or repurposed) and then they would also need carrier backing in order to get the sales penetration needed for a sustainable plan.
The major issue carriers will have with CM is the fact that the OS is rooted out-of-the-box and that carriers have a multitude of requirements imposed on handsets they'll slap their brand name on. Carriers tend to have business needs that require them to preload certain content on the device, rooting a device allows the user to quickly remove this content (something a carrier might have to swallow from the more knowledgeable users, but not something they would be willing to allow their userbase to perform at the flip of a switch). Rooting also opens a whole mess of security questions, which a carrier would tend to want to stay away from:
User: "My personal info was stolen from my phone!"
Carrier tech support: "Well your phone is rooted and you downloaded some nasty apps that captured your private data"
User: "But you sold me a rooted phone."
You also face issues like some of those mentioned in the comments here to the tune of "CM7 makes it easy to use Netflix". This is one example of many, but Netflix is currently only supported on select few handsets. I can imagine the lawsuits if a carrier were to sell and sponsor a device that "allows user to easily bypass device restrictions" put in place by app vendors. I'm not saying I don't have fun tinkering and hacking around apps in my spare time... but opening those doors to the masses and being liable for such a product is a whole different story.
Now the carrier is faced with having to support and guarantee a product that in the hands of an ignorant or unknowing customer can go horribly wrong.
Sony Ericsson has tackled this issue lately, allowing them to certify phones with carriers and have a secure out-of-the-box experience, but allow the customer to void his/her warranty by punching in their handset's IMEI on a website, obtaining an unlock code for the bootloader allowing full modification of the device. Forcing the customer through a lengthy agreement that renders all warranties null and void makes the carriers and OEMs safe from fallout if the user screws up their device from that point forward.
Cyanogen mod has quite a ways to go yet until they're ready to play in a commercial (and corporate) world where legal implication and stupid users require everything to be dumbed down and secured for consumption by everyone from preteens to seniors. I look forward to the day when I can sign up for my wireless plan and walk away with a Cyanogen handset, however I fear that if they look to commercialize the product they will end up taking away all that is great about CM in the first place.
In my opinion CM will thrive best staying where it is, being the best after-market mod/distro for Android devices.
I consider it odd that carriers can hobble Android at will and pass the Google cert program, but a community of dedicated programmers devoted to restoring functionality to Android users would have problems passing this so-called certification process.
Read between the lines: You must be a mobile carrier with $$$ to pass a certification process -- this permits you to have carte blanche to lock down your phones and remove features as you see fit. A real certification process would ensure the Market app would be able to run on each phone or tablet running Android, prevent the device from being loaded with crapware by the carriers, and allow the user to have "root" privileges.
Until a user can do what he or she wants on their mobile, this certification is a bad joke by Google and mobile carriers at the expense of their users and customer base.
MIUI is a Chinese ROM that is NOT opensource. Be wary of using it.
Then I got frustrated for the bugs, the limitations and the obsolescence of the single 1.6 ROM that HTC had granted to my phone and I decided to void the warranty and install CM.
It turned out that CM is much more stable than the stock ROM: just to make a single example of its quality, the original ROM had a delay of a couple of seconds (!) between pushing a button on the headset remote and the phone executing the matching action; and HTC was perfectly happy with that.
And above all, by virtue of being updated to Gingerbread, the phone now has most of the features that I was missing when I switched from Symbian to Donut.
My only concern is that my phone contains a lot of personal information, so I'm a bit afraid of exploitable bugs (or backdoors - hey, you can never be too cautious). But since CM is fully open source, I feel a bit safer for the "many eyes" principle.
Oh well, my PS3 already sent all my personal details to the hackers anyway :D .