For those who do not know, CyanogenMod is a group of people who felt that Google could do better on their OS. As Android is Open Source, they decided to do something about it and thus launched CyanogenMod – a forked OS which can be installed on your Android phone which will give it capabilities that the stock option or the various other vendor based options do not have. It also removes the bloat that your phone has because of the vendors.
It has gained huge momentum especially considering that the process of installing the OS voids your warranty and is risky as it can brick your phone. Trust me; I have bricked my phone so this is first handed information that the risks are real.
Despite this, the benefits are real and a person if is careful will find his phone getting a new lease of life. The advantages are especially visible in the low-end phones that had a shortage of memory and other bottle-necks.
However, like everything, growth and change are mandatory. Especially considering the fact that as Android progressed it is became better and reduced the need for Custom-Roms. CyanogenMod too has decided to morph into more than just a community of enthusiast.
Now, it is called CyanogenMod Inc. and they already have an investment of $7 Million to start off with. The immediate goals of the company according to their blog are as follows-
- Organize, lead, and support our community.
- Create amazing user experience centered around how YOU work
- Security solutions that really work
- Stay committed to building the features our users need
- No junk
- Constant updates
- Available on everything, to everyone
Besides these goals, the biggest primary concern for CyanogenMod is to make the installation process as easy as possible. According to the blog, a new installer will soon be in Google Play which should make the installation process even simpler.
Here is a blog post by Mitch Lasky where it is discussed what the future holds for CyanogenMod and also acknowledged the $7 Million funding that CyanogenMod Inc. has received.
There are various questions that loom over. First is that how will this company find profits. While it is one thing to create an OS as a hobby, to create something with an intention of creating profits in the future, the game changes completely. Also, the company would now want to release the OS on the phones from the scratch and in fact, it is in their plans to eventually venture into the hardware section as well with launching smartphones with their OS.
All this is pretty exciting stuff and hopefully we might see this trickling down to India as well.
For now though, the biggest advantage we might have is that if the installation process smoothens out, then many people who own older smartphones might find themselves using CyanogenMod to get better updated versions.
[This post has been contributed by Kunal Prakash]
