With Cyanogen Dead, Google's Control Over Android Is Tighter Than Ever (greenbot.com)

Last week, Cyanogen Inc announced it is shutting down all its services. A day later, CyanogenMod announced that it is going away too. Regardless of how you found Cyanogen's commercial operating system or open source fork CyanogenMod, the demise has bigger implications. From a report on GreenBot: Cyanogen might never have seriously threatened to take control of Android, but the upstart's shutdown still represents a major victory for Google. As Google showed with the launch of the Pixel, the company is taking steps to ensure no one ever gets close to stealing Android's soul ever again. [...] In many ways, Cyanogen encapsulated more of the spirit of Google's mobile OS project than Android itself ever did. As an early offshoot of the mainstream project designed and supported by habitual modders, Cyanogen was in many ways more aligned with the iOS jailbreaking community than Android proper, bringing customization and features far beyond those available in the stock OS. But almost as quickly as Android took off, Google began reining it in. By implementing stricter rules for manufacturers to prevent further fragmentation -- including licensing of its apps and mandatory inclusion of its search bar widget -- Google actively worked to keep deviant versions of Android on the fringes. Nonetheless, CyanogenMod persisted, surviving cease-and-desist orders, takeover rumors and general Google-led consternation. And now it's all over. Google won, not by waging war with Cyanogen but by doubling down on its own vision, forging partnerships with manufacturers, and working to ensure that Google's Android remained the world's Android.

Comments

Goolge needs to ban carrier builds and let people

[Joe_Dragon]

Goolge needs to ban carrier builds and let people update there os with out needing to wait for the carrier to do it.

Crackpot

[Luthair]

Despite the CEO of cyanogen claiming they were taking away Android from Google, they were always irrelevant. They may have had a few wins with minor players consumers had no relevance with consumers and were never going to replace Google services.

Re:Goolge needs to ban carrier builds and let peop

[Solandri]

Then Android wouldn't be open source anymore. Which do you want? An OS which is open and that anyone can fork and modify if they don't like how the original author made it? Or an OS which is closed and proprietary so you have to take it the way the original author made it, no alterations?

Way I see it, the carrier problem isn't Google's responsibility. It's a market problem - vertical integration causing lack of customer fluidity. The carriers own the towers, the service, and also sell the phones. GSM tackled the problem by requiring SIM cards, basically forcing all phones to be interchangeable between carriers. The U.S. doesn't have that so your phone is frequently tied to your carrier, giving them an unprecedented level of control over your phone.

But will the OEMs still control security patching?

[QuietLagoon]

So long as the OEMs continue to control whether or not, and when, security patches are installed, Google can claim all the control they want. But they do not have that control. Android customers are left in the lurch, subject to the whims of the OEMs and to security issues from unpatched vulnerabilities.

Re:We are back to square one

[Kjella]

But then to fix the web required a third-party browser to already exist that adhered to standards to gain marketshare, which came in the form of mobile Safari on the iPhone.

Stop licking Steve Jobs' butt, he did enough without making shit up. Peak IE was around 2004 with 95% market share. In mid-2007 when the first generation iPhone launched it was already down to around 80%, that is non-IE share had quadrupled and the monopoly was cracking all over. The market for $399+ smartphones was nothing compared to the many hundreds of millions of computers in use, the first sign of mobile browsing having any more than a token presence was in 2010 (went from 1.3% to 4.1% that year, according to StatCounter) when IE was down to 60%. The iPhone had absolutely nothing to do with the fall of IE.