Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft To Invest In Rogue Android Startup Cyanogen

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the have-a-pile-of-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft plans to be a minority investor in a roughly $70 million round of equity financing for mobile startup Cyanogen Inc. Neither company is commenting on the plan but last week during a talk in San Francisco, Cyanogen's CEO said the company's goal was to "take Android away from Google." According to Bloomberg: "The talks illustrate how Microsoft is trying to get its applications and services on rival operating systems, which has been a tenet of Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella. Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."

54 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. A good thing. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Waiting for your carrier for an upgrade? One that might never come? Competition is a good thing in this case.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:A good thing. by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      you know what's fucking bizarre? the part of nokia that microsoft bought had several android based models on the market(not in usa/euro are athough, in the markets they're available they're outselling windows phones..). but microsoft killed further developments of that line of devices.

      so what the fuck are they meddling with cyanogen? I wouldn't mind having cyanogen for my nokia X though.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:A good thing. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      That makes no sense at all. Cyanogen is a bit player; how many people do you know who are running it? (If you do know any, exclude all the tech-heads and answer again.) MS doesn't care about destroying something that's barely larger than a hobby project.

      MS *does* care about hurting Google and improving the marketshare for Windows Phone, or somehow improving their own presence in the mobile arena. So any actions here are going to be towards that end.

      Perhaps they see any move to help Cyanogen as something which will help destabilize Android in general. Or, more likely, they see it as something that can use to get a big foothold into the Android space, and then use it to take it over from Google. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

  2. why google keeps microsoft away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    microsoft - we don't want your programs on Android because they suck

    1. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by gatkinso · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because Chrome isn't a steaming pile of shit that constantly crashes while consuming all resources when it manages to run for longer than 30 seconds.

      --
      I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
    2. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How odd for you to say that since Android itself is a huge steaming pile of shit. Why is Android so slow? Why does it take forever to boot or load anything? Why can't it scroll a simple menu without stuttering? Why does it often go unresponsive to touches? Why does it require twice the CPU and twice the RAM of both Windows Phone and iOS?

    3. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by fizzer06 · · Score: 2
      See: "Hyperbole"

      noun: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

    4. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      More specifically, because lots of Android's fundamental architecture was dictated by a perceived need to work on slow CPUs (as in, 400MHz ARMv6) with absurdly low-res displays (remember 240x360?). Literally NOBODY involved with Android's genesis would have believed you if you told them that 5 years after the HTC G-phone's arrival on T-mobile, a phone with 1280x800 display, 1Ghz dualcore CPU, a gig of RAM, and at least 4-8 gigs of flash would be considered uselessly ghetto and hopelessly obsolete.

      Remember, the whole reason why Google made the Nexus One was its frustration with the wimpy hardware of the second-gen Android phones, and hints that the third-generation phones were only going to be another half-step better. On the day of its release, the Nexus One was literally leaps and bounds beyond any competing phone, and its popularity forced HTC and Samsung to throw away their roadmaps and race back to the drawing board to come up with the Evo4G and Galaxy S family.

      Current things that make Android feel laggy:

      * 30hz touchscreen drivers and screen update rates are still the norm. 1/30th of a second is long enough to be perceptible as "lag", and when you factor triple-buffering into the equation, the lag is more like 1/15 second.

      * The resolution and color depths of high-end Android phones have completely outstripped the dumb-framebuffer 3Dfx-heritage architecture behind most current hardware. Most video chipsets were optimized for 16-bit color at 1280x800 (more or less), but some high-end Android phones now ship with 2560x1600 displays running at 24-bit color and can barely sustain 30fps, let alone 60fps or faster. Basically, they're optimized for (and accelerate) the wrong thing. They might have great 3D graphics for games, but those capabilities are unusable and useless at higher-res/color. That's why some Android homescreen-replacement apps use 3D acceleration, but become fuzzy during transitions... they drop the resolution and color depth down to what the chips can handle, and don't go back to full-resolution until the transition completes. You can see it for yourself... do the "rotating cube" effect (or whatever you want to use), and notice that the moment the gesture begins, the resolution gets fuzzed in half, then snaps back into focus when you stop.

      * Android's primitive (compared to Java since 1.4) garbage collection, which practically forces the OS to constantly kill off apps running in the background to reclaim their RAM, coupled by the real-world problems of trying to use a phone's flash to do Linux-style virtual memory (if you aren't careful, you can literally burn through an eMMC's lifetime write count in a few months. MicroSD is even worse... more than a few guys at XDA have destroyed expensive Sandisk microSD cards with a few days of hard benchmarking and intensive swapping. That's why most Android ROMs no longer make it easy to enable swap, even though it can be a HUGE performance boost. Too many users were destroying flash cards too quickly. Cyanogen with a large swapfile that's tweaked to abstain from killing off idle tasks will nuke a brand new class-10 microSD card in about 3-8 months of normal daily use... and if you did a swapfile with the phone's INTERNAL flash, your phone would essentially get bricked once the counter tripped and the eMMC write-protected itself (because Android can't deal with booting into an environment where it literally can't write ANYTHING to disk).

    5. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by cheesybagel · · Score: 2

      Android is slow because applications are basically written in Java and run inside an interpreter or a JIT. Then again iOS applications are compiled directly to ARM and after a couple of upgrades the OS is slow as shit too.

    6. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

      the real-world problems of trying to use a phone's flash to do Linux-style virtual memory

      No Android device I'm aware of uses flash for swap. There are a small handful that swap to compressed RAM, the fast majority have no swap at all; when physical memory is exhausted something has to die.

      (I work for Google, on the Android OS.)

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    7. Re: why google keeps microsoft away by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      Awesome. Can you please fix the biggest annoyance of android: if I place a call and immediately lock the screen the screen gets unlocked automatically when the call gets connected. That means if I put it in my pocket after I initiate the call it may hangup or go mute it whatever.

      That's the main reason I went back to iPhone. Thanks!

      Well, did you contact Google about this issue? They are a company that sometimes even responds to feedback.

    8. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Informative

      No Android device running a stock carrier ROM ever used flash for swap (that I'm aware of), but ~2-3 years ago, just about everyone running Cyanogenmod (or some other AOSP-derived ROM) had swapfiles. And yes, we really DID destroy $80+ microSD cards. It caught almost everyone by surprise, because we all blindly believed the manufacturers' assertions that the flash would last "a lifetime of normal use", failing to note that manufacturers didn't consider paging virtual memory almost nonstop to be "normal use". It was literally a use case the manufacturers never designed for, that didn't even become *viable* until overclocked class 6 and class 10 microSD became fast enough to make swapping to it faster than killing & re-spawning activities.

    9. Re:why google keeps microsoft away by Holi · · Score: 2

      I really doubt many manufacturers ever thought people would be using microSD cards for swap on phones that normally do not use swap at all. So yeah that is definitely outside of "normal use" situations.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  3. Cyanogen 13.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Will use 640k of ram and a delightful assistant named Clippy.

  4. Re:Well Shoot... by unixisc · · Score: 2

    What's the state of Replicant? The FSF version of Android?

  5. "Rogue"? by Nemyst · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What in the hell? Is Cyanogen "rogue" because they're using the Android Open-Source Project as it was designed? Because that also makes Samsung, Motorola, HTC and every other manufacturer who reskins/alters Android "rogue".

    1. Re:"Rogue"? by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the idea is that Google, Samsung, Motorola, and HTC have all made themselves into a sort of cartel that don't allow the "open source project" to actually be a source of freedom for consumers. Cyanogen is "rogue" because it bucks that system and restores freedom to the project.

    2. Re:"Rogue"? by swillden · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think the idea is that Google, Samsung, Motorola, and HTC have all made themselves into a sort of cartel that don't allow the "open source project" to actually be a source of freedom for consumers. Cyanogen is "rogue" because it bucks that system and restores freedom to the project.

      Not really. That may be the perception, but it's not true. Google is quite happy to see CM and similar third party ROMs flourish; this is part of why all Nexus devices are unlockable.

      (Disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer, and I work on Android, but I'm not a Google spokesperson and this is my opinion, not an official statement.)

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    3. Re:"Rogue"? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google is quite happy to see CM and similar third party ROMs flourish

      Flourish or tolerate? Honest question. I've seen entire ROMs stymied by small things Google could/should have done as just a decent vendor, regardless of the ROM in question. For instance, a couple years ago the Droid3 port fizzed because the then-Google-owned Motorola wouldn't talk to anybody about releasing specs to turn on the camera.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    4. Re:"Rogue"? by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My perception is that Google is fairly open, more so than the others, not locking down the Nexus devices. But on the other hand, their Android partners are really locking things down, and the most generous view of Google is that they're simply powerless to stop it. Often enough, it seems like there are people within Google who favor openness, but the company as a whole is happy to let users' freedoms be restricted so long as it pushes them farther into the Google ecosystem.

      That's my perception, not that Microsoft or Apple, or even Blackberry are any better. Google is the most freedom-loving of the bunch, but still not exactly the rebel freedom-fighting bunch that their fans would sometimes like to paint them as.

      That's my perception, anyway, as an outsider who follows things relatively well.

    5. Re:"Rogue"? by swillden · · Score: 2

      Google is quite happy to see CM and similar third party ROMs flourish

      Flourish or tolerate? Honest question. I've seen entire ROMs stymied by small things Google could/should have done as just a decent vendor, regardless of the ROM in question. For instance, a couple years ago the Droid3 port fizzed because the then-Google-owned Motorola wouldn't talk to anybody about releasing specs to turn on the camera.

      Flourish.

      Your example just demonstrates that Google really did allow Motorola to operate as a separate OEM, not directly influenced by the Android team. It's also possible that Motorola didn't have the option of releasing the specs because of agreements with the camera manufacturer. (Note that I don't know anything about that specific incident, and hadn't even heard of it until you mentioned it. I do know that Google would like its Nexus devices to be much more open than they are, but can't get there without becoming a hardware manufacturer.)

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    6. Re:"Rogue"? by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 2

      Um, by definition they're a start-up. They have only been established as a company for approximately two years, with only around 1.25 of those in public existence.

      "for a while now" - less than a year for OnePlus One, just a tiny bit over a year for the Oppo N1 - which they completely failed to continue updating by not deploying KitKat until after Lollipop was released.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  6. pot and kettle by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."

    Haha, cry us a river Microsoft. I'm all for an open platform but this investment is just step 1 of their embrace, extend, extinguish operating procedure. What's that quote about how smaller companies should NEVER work with MS?

    --
    This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
    1. Re:pot and kettle by swillden · · Score: 3, Informative

      Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."

      MS has a bunch of apps in the Play store. https://play.google.com/store/...

      AFAIK, the only MS app Google has blocked was Microsoft's YouTube app, which violated the YouTube terms of service.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    2. Re:pot and kettle by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      There is a whole wikipedia article on the machinations of M$ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..., then there is Embrace, extend and extinguish Embrace, extend and extinguish and there is also Fear, uncertainty and doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F..., with M$ having a reputation for having mastered it. So the fellows at M$ were pretty naughty but that seems pretty much typical for major corporations when they become dominant, they just automatically turn into a great big old bag of exploitative dicks until they end up being sufficiently punished by the market. They of course try to fend this off, normally seeking government assistance to protect their position via the application of hoards of corrupt lobbyists.

      Eventually once sufficiently punished and managed largely replaced they can sometimes come good although they can never ever be trusted as a dominant player again. There is of course no harm in using them to weaken other players who have gained dominance, maintaining a balance in suppliers being important.

      Basically over sized corporations are just a really, really bad idea and breaking them up and keeping them small often serves everyone far better.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  7. Competition is good by jgotts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd like to see Cyanogen succeed because the more competition there is in the smartphone market, the more companies will be pressured to develop new, useful features.

    I bought my first smartphone two years ago last month. It's a Samsung Galaxy S III. It still works great, despite some quirks. I felt like with the Galaxy S III, the smartphone was beginning to take a quantum leap forward in features. Especially for the last year, though, it seems like there isn't much to crow about except for some fingerprint functionality nobody uses. Phones are getting a bit more memory, somewhat faster CPUs, a bit better screens, and improved cameras but you would expect all of these things. In terms of new and interesting features, it seems like we're in a mature market where we've all decided upon what it means for a device to be a smartphone.

    Perhaps Cyanogen will bring some excitement back. At worst, they'll come up with some new ideas that Samsung can license or copy. I'm using Samsung as an example, but I could be talking about HTC or one of the Chinese startups. I don't see a whole lot to distinguish current smartphones (except that Samsung does not permanently glue batteries inside of its products).

    1. Re:Competition is good by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Informative

      Success via Microsoft will not produce 'competition'. They're not getting 'free money'. It always comes with lots of strings.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Competition is good by hughbar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As a bit of an eco-nazi, I don't see any of this as 'good', more 'features' every year, none of them particularly useful [do you really want to watch crappy music videos on a tiny screen, judging by my commute people do though] and more phones made/destroyed/in landfill.

      Actually cell phones are a nuisance anyway, people can't walk and text or phone and text, so they bump into you. On bicycles, they risk life and limb [theirs and unhappily others] in London by using headphones [though admittedly a walkman or ipod is just as 'good' for this].

      Despite what you see above, I love tech, having been in/around it for 40 years, but I really, really believe we need to step back from our current destructive and rather purposeless [except for making cash, of course] product cycles. Fat chance.

      --
      On y va, qui mal y pense!
  8. Godzilla v. Mothra by Bob9113 · · Score: 2

    You know those Godzilla movies where the monsters stomp around Tokyo causing more destruction than WWII, destroying everything around them?

    --
    Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
    1. Re:Godzilla v. Mothra by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      Balmer isn't head of Microsoft anymore....

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  9. Plan B by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is Microsoft preparing a Plan B for when they finally give up on Windows Mobile?

    1. Re:Plan B by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think this is right. They're making more investments in getting their apps on iOS and Android. I think this investment is an indication that they're interested in having their own Android distribution (or one that they can at least partner with) which will allow them control while maintaining application compatibility.

      And if so, I'd say that's a smart move. It's probably not a full plan yet, but more of a hedge while they try to push mobile application development by decreasing the barriers between development for Windows desktop, Windows Tablet, and Windows Phone. One way or another, they need a mobile platform with apps.

    2. Re:Plan B by PapayaSF · · Score: 2

      Note that due to patent royalties, Microsoft already makes $5-$15 from every Android device. That adds up to more than they make from Windows Phone.

      --
      Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
  10. Microsoft has never played nice by Required+Snark · · Score: 4, Informative

    Why should things be any different this time?

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
  11. This! by s.petry · · Score: 2

    And as for Microsoft's whining about not having access to the OS layer of Android to run it's applications, I suggest they learn what the application layer is and learn to live in it. Having access to every layer of the OS today is why they are still insecure after well over a decade of security people telling them to fix their stuff.

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  12. Oh please please please please.... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

    Please let them walk into a huge secret patent thicket which serves them green, green justice.

  13. Not always a good thing. by freeze128 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not always. Even cyanogenmod has abandoned many devices that could still be viable phones today. CM seems to focus mainly on the most popular phones for the latest releases, and in some cases, the devs for a particular make/model of device have just gone MIA, and development stagnates.

    1. Re:Not always a good thing. by erice · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not always. Even cyanogenmod has abandoned many devices that could still be viable phones today. CM seems to focus mainly on the most popular phones for the latest releases, and in some cases, the devs for a particular make/model of device have just gone MIA, and development stagnates.

      Yes, it seems like most phones are abandoned by cyanogenmod at about the same time the manufacturer does. Certainly, this was the case Mytouch 4G/HTC Glacier. The last manufacturer release (less than a year after I bought the phone) was Gingerbread. The last Cyanogenmod: also Gingerbread.

      They're good with Google's phones and the most popular Samsung phones but anything else is a gamble even if it is supported at the time you buy the phone.

    2. Re:Not always a good thing. by complete+loony · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Cyanogen mod don't have access to the source code for all of the drivers required to run the hardware. So they have to copy the binaries from the manufacturer.

      If the manufacturer doesn't support new versions of android, with newer linux kernels, there's not much they can do.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    3. Re:Not always a good thing. by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, it seems like most phones are abandoned by cyanogenmod at about the same time the manufacturer does.

      The sticking point is drivers. Most SoCs are abandoned at about the same time and virtually none of the drivers are Open, let alone Free. If some influential manufacturer keeps using a particular SoC past the usual sunset, then odds are good that they will release a newer version of Android, and then the drivers can be taken from their image and used to roll a newer version of CM for other devices based on the same SoC.

      AFAIK the only GPU with credible OSS drivers is still Mali 400, which is an antique by modern standards. Still works, though. It works well enough to play Q3, IIRC. Most of the rest of the hardware is less well supported than that...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Not always a good thing. by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The issue is, per this post on Cyanogenmod Forums:

      CM devs are consumers first. What this means is that they do not divide up devices among other developers, or assign devices like one would at a job. Developers work in their spare time without monetary compensation. Because of this, the developers are free to work on any device they choose to purchase.

      Now, what does this mean to you? First off, requesting anywhere in the CM forum, the CM Blog, or the Facebook/Google+/Twitter accounts for device XX to be supported is probably a waste of your time and anybody who reads said request. CyanogenMod does not work on device requests as there is no guaranteeing that a current CM maintainer is even interested in the device. Additionally, its not as simple as 'porting' code, the device trees must be coded from scratch and made to work with the AOSP sourced code and CM enhancements. This takes a large amount of time and effort, especially when the device's OEM fails to release the latest version of Android for it. Second, in hoping a worthy developer sees the post and decides to take up the project... well, that is probably just wishful thinking. Many developers do not like interacting with end users (too much finger pointing between both devs and users or anger directed at the devs for something working other than how the user expects - it happens far too often); because of that, many developers don't frequent the forum (or if they do, they only view the forums for the devices they maintain). The best way to get a device official support is not requesting it from the CM team, but learning how to do it yourself or encouraging a maintainer of an unofficial build to submit their code for review.

      So, Cyanogenmod devs will support what strikes their fancy. And if they are no longer interested in a device, it won't be supported any longer. Now if they get financing, maybe this will change as most consumers want some stability and continued support. It is one of the things that could differentiate itself from the phone makers... if they care to. If not, in this regard they won't be any different. And it would be a shame since it is nice to get rid of bloatware.

      The vast majority of people will not port their own devices. They either don't have the time or the technical know-how or nether. I will use the stock OS if it isn't available as a stable CM. In fact I do with my P600 Samsung Note. But even if they did, after reading that sticky from the forum, I am less willing to adopt CM and choose to just root the device instead.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    5. Re:Not always a good thing. by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      this is why i'm waiting for a phone with Intel CPU+GPU. for now, intel's phone cpus come with powervr gpu which is probably the most linux unfriendly gpu there is. anybody remember intel gma 500? i'm not stepping in that sh*t again.

    6. Re:Not always a good thing. by Holi · · Score: 2

      It seems that Cyanogen is focusing on the One Plus One. Seeing as how they now have a paying gig it doesn't surprise me that that is where their focus is.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    7. Re:Not always a good thing. by mrchaotica · · Score: 2

      And if you want a version of Android that doesn't do this -- that actually does try to reverse-engineer the binary blobs instead -- then you want to support Replicant (although it works on fewer devices than Cyanogenmod right now).

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    8. Re:Not always a good thing. by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is that unlike on the desktop, the display subsystem on many devices is more than just the GPU. Also, the subcomponents of the display subsystem interact with other subcomponents in such a way that if an OEM makes changes, those changes ripple throughout the whole subsystem.

      The end result is that if one component of the display subsystem (and this includes the camera, since it has hooks into the display subsystem to handle preview and such) is closed-source and deviates from the reference implementation for that platform, it's a nightmare of reverse engineering to get the other components open-sourced.

      That's why, for example, most of the original CyanogenMod maintainers for Samsung Exynos4 devices ditched the platform. Samsung had reference source at Insignal, but it was vastly outdated (Their "ICS" source had significant architectural components that dated back to Gingerbread) and didn't even remotely match what ANY OEM used (Samsung's own handsets did NOT use the "gingerbready" components referenced previously). Getting that source usable with any real device was a nightmare. The kernel wasn't the issue, it was all of the HAL stuff - hwcomposer/gralloc/etc - especially hwcomposer.

      Cyngn (the abbreviation I use to refer to Cyanogen Inc) does have access to all the proprietary goodies that should allow them to support a device very well, but so far, their track record has been to do no better than the OEMs they claim to be trying to provide an alternative.
      Oppo N1 - didn't receive KitKat OTA until November 2014, 1 year after KK was released. Epic fail. Yeah, there were CM11 nightlies, but Cyngn staff will aggressively remind you that community builds (including CM nightlies) are NOT supported
      OnePlus One - Their current state is "average" - many OEMs upated to Lollipop within a month of Google releasing it, Cyngn is at 3 months and counting.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    9. Re:Not always a good thing. by Rob+Y. · · Score: 5, Interesting

      True. But how vital is the specific kernel version to the upgrade from, say, Kit-Kat to Jellybean? Google goes with a new kernel for support for new devices - and to otherwise keep up-to-date. But couldn't the AOSP source code to Kit-Kat or Lollipop be built against the kernel used in Jellybean to get a CM ROM that has all the features of the latest Android - but works on otherwise abandoned hardware, using the binary drivers that were produced for that hardware.

      There might even be a cash business for such a service. OEM's abandoned your otherwise viable device? Pay us 10 bucks and we'll upgrade you. Beats having to buy a new phone.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
  14. Re:Good one, Microsoft. by jedidiah · · Score: 2

    How exactly could Google even stop Microsoft? The OS allows for side loading and alternative stores. If Microsoft can't get on the Play store, they could just sell their stuff through Amazon.

    That summary makes absolutely no sense.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  15. Re:Well Shoot... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    What can I run my Nexus tablet on now that Cyanogenmod has sold out? Suggestions anyone?

    I suggest you be specific as to what Nexus tablet you have if you want advice, since there are several and they are all different. I also suggest you take yourself to the XDA-Developers forums for your particular device. There you will find a number of alternate roms for a variety of tastes.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  16. Re:Video search != video hosting by Noah+Haders · · Score: 2

    . Bing Videos is to Google Videos as Myspace is to YouTube

    OOOOOH BURRRRRRN

  17. Should Cyanogen actually say yes to MS money? by buckfeta2014 · · Score: 2

    Microsoft has already got their hands bloody with Android, due to their FAT file system licensing, among other things. If anything Google/Android should be distancing itself from Microsoft, not letting them take over one aftermarket OS at a time.

    --
    Buck Feta. You know what to do.
  18. Re:This is quite amusing.... by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Additionally, I personally would argue that from a OMG UNIX has conquered the world perspective that Android == Linux as little as Mac OS X == NetBSD since all the parts that people care about are derivative or proprietary.

    That isn't true of Android. Sure, if you're writing in Java the *nix-ness is all abstracted away behind the JVM, but if you choose to write native code, you find yourself right back in Linux-land. There are some oddities, of course, like the assignment of UIDs to apps, rather than users. And starting with Lollipop, SELinux is used to block app native code access to many parts of the system (e.g. you can't go looking around in /proc to find out what else is running). But it's definitely still Linux.

    It's not true of OS X, either. Again, there are lots of new APIs layered on top, but it's still very clearly Unix. Maybe you meant iOS, not OS X. In that case, I don't know if you're right or not because I've never worked in iOS.

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  19. Re:Well Shoot... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    AOSP?
    Omni? (I'm biased here - the history is that it was founded by a number of Cyanogenmod maintainers that left as a result of the Focal fiasco. However I'll be honest, a lot of the developers have burned out and as a result we're really behind on a lot of things...)
    Some of the Omni guys along with people from EOS and Slim are talking about forming a project that is strictly limited in focus to hardware support. Some of the ex-Gummy guys already formed such a project (AOD) but a number of people (including myself) are holding back because they kind of rushed things - starting to code without planning the project, while the challenge of such a project is planning and organization/politics. Screw up the planning and organization/politics and best case is that you wind up "just another ROM".

    AOKP is dead due to Cyngn hiring Roman
    Same for ChameleonOS

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  20. Re:Well Shoot... by Holi · · Score: 2

    How did Cyanogen screw over phone makers? really I don't get how an alternative OS who gets limited to no support from the phone makers could possibly screw them over. Wasn't it the phone makers who started locking the boot loaders?

    Not saying they didn't I just have never heard that.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  21. The Honeymoon Is Over For Satya Nadella by NewYork · · Score: 2

    Microsoft's stock is crashing today after the company delivered a middling earnings report and gloomy guidance for the rest of the year. Several analysts downgraded the stock, and it's down more than 9% this morning.

    Pretty harsh, considering the company wowed reporters (including me) just last week with its Windows 10 event and the introduction of an augmented reality headset called HoloLens.

    So what's going on here?

    In August 2013, Steve Ballmer announced his retirement as Microsoft's CEO. Investors were so frustrated with Ballmer's missteps, like whiffing on mobile and spending billions trying to beat Google in search advertising, that they were delighted. The stock is up almost 50% since Ballmer said he was leaving.

    Satya Nadella is different from Ballmer. He's technical, not a sales guy. He's got a long-term vision for where tech is going and how Microsoft might capitalize on it. He doesn't seem like he'd ever take ill-advised potshots against new competitive products, like Ballmer did with the iPhone.

    But despite Nadella's new tone and some of the changes he's made, Microsoft's business is basically still in the same place it was under Steve Ballmer:

    Most of Microsoft's money comes from big businesses, which are starting to move to lower-margin cloud services. Steve Ballmer's greatest - and often dismissed - achievement was turning Microsoft into a serious enterprise player. In the last quarter, Microsoft got about two-thirds of its gross profit and half its revenue ($10.8 billion and $13.2 billion respectively) from its "commercial" segment - selling to businesses. But revenue from traditional software licensing was down 2%, and Microsoft warned of particularly weak performance in Japan. The big problem: cloud services book less revenue up front than traditional one-time software sales, and have higher ongoing costs. That means as Microsoft's core customers move from buying software to buying online services, Microsoft will face revenue and margin pressure in its most important segment.
    Windows isn't what it used to be. Only 15% of the world's devices now access the Internet using Windows, down from more than 90% a decade ago. This is showing up in various ways: for instance, Windows revenue was down 13% from last year; the end of Windows XP support last year drove a lot of businesses to upgrade, but with that deadline passed, there's less reason to buy new PCs with Windows. Windows 10 will undo some of the missteps of Windows 8, and will be much more appealing to business users. But despite Nadella's new mantra that he wants people to "love" Windows, it's never going to dominate the world like it once did. It will be one of several big important operating systems, not the only one that matters. The collapse of a monopoly business is a long-term margin squeezer.
    Microsoft is nowhere in mobile. After more than four years on the market, Windows Phone has less than 3 percent market share worldwide, and its share has been dropping, not rising. Most developers ignore it. Windows 10 is supposed to change that - it'll be easier for developers to take their Windows applications and revamp them for Windows on phones. But there's very little reason for all but the most devoted Windows developers to do any extra work to target a mobile platform that people aren't buying. Most developers have limited time! They're already busy keeping up with all the changes to Android and iOS.
    Developers no longer need Microsoft. Related to the first point, because Windows no longer dominates, developers no longer have to build for Windows first. They can build for iOS, Android, or the web, and reach more people. Nadella and Microsoft seem to be laying out a long-term vision where Microsoft's platform will not only support Windows devices, but also tie back to cloud services and enable a whole bunch of new types of interactions, like augmented reality (Windows 10 will include a

    --
    Casteism