Who killed Cyanogen? Does European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager's team pay close attention to the tech news? If not, perhaps they should. Last week there was barely a murmur after Cyanogen Inc scaled back its ambitions. “Throwing in the towel” may be harsh – but the Android software company said it would henceforth be trying to …
"Then Cyanogen Inc made a completely baffling move – one that continues to puzzle readers. It signed an exclusivity deal with Micromax in India...."
I agree this decision does sound baffling but having watched the first two series of Silicon Valley it probably made complete sense to the VCs that delighted in constantly meddling and were pushing for a big deal so they could cash out ASAP after.
that ensures that perfect forward secrecy is absent (as far as possible) from the Standards;
and that if anyone was to secretly pick a RND Prime, they'd choose {that_one} he he he, strokes cat;
can't have too many realistic options available, what if people could remove their batteries in the future - then the phone/OS wouldn't be able to simulate being OFF ;
I'm talking about the pesky russian oligarchy, of course!
The mere rumor of MS investment was a red flag.
I was interested in using CM, but when that news came out, I discovered several more concrete reasons not to bother with it... and I decided not to waste my time with smartphones. I'll use theme if I must - cheap ones - but no more than necessary.
It seems to be full of people who are ten years behind the times - Microsoft is no longer the dominant power. It has been replaced by even greater horrors. The commentators can't deal with that. They want a simple world where Megatron is the villain and Optimus Prime is the hero.
During their teenage years they learned to hate Microsoft, at first for good reasons. But over time that hatred developed a life of its own, and now it is self-perpetuating.
>You're forgetting where you are. On El Reg, it's extremely cool and edgy to blame everything on Microsoft
No, Microsoft bring it upon themselves by self inflicted gunshot wounds to the foot. Are you telling me forced updates are a good idea ? I could reel off a whole long list, are you free for the rest of the week ?
"A slave begins by demanding justice, and ends by wanting to wear a crown" - Albert Camus
They started with a great idea, and succumbed to greed. That's what ultimately killed Cyanogen off. But, if that never happened, several things would've happened anyway:
1) Would Google have allowed another product, spawned from what it (sort of) created, to superceed it's own offering?
2) Would manufacturers have taken the gamble of backing an OS, and trying to promote that OS to those accustomed to a post-BlackBerry world of iOS and Android apps?
3) Would the Cyanogen community, that contributed code on a hobbyist basis, allow Cyanogen to use their code for monetary gains without some sort of compensation?
Yes, because the task he had chosen to do had filled his heart. It was his reason for being, and that he was able to do that meant he was content. The back drop to this, however, was the argument that man's life is absurd as we chose to look for the meaning of a life that probably has no meaning.
That was my interpretation of it anyway.
Nice additions to Android and security updates only go so far. With an app store and services (e.g. maps) that share money between Cyanogen and the phone manufacturers they would have got real interest in their OS.
Well, hindsight is 50/50.
apkpure is pretty good. But, yeah, Google, quite understandably doesn't like people stepping on its toes.
Now the CM eco-system, the stuff the hobbyists are working on, is here to stay. And Google is probably quite happy. It keeps older phones running and using their services. It's just a pity the other manufacturers haven't embraced it more as a two-way street.
You get folks that float on a air of positivity (mainly young people...hipsters...those just out of Uni) that think their idea will be totally original, have zero issues, cons, problems, set backs, cock ups etc.
Then there would be me at the back, the guy in his late 30's (now mid 40's) that is classed as 'old school', been there, done that for years and just gets constant eye rolls and teeth sucking noises thrown at him in meetings.
I would be the one that said " Well what if Google does this, that and the other..?" basically outlining all the obstacles as per the article.
Next meeting I wouldn't be on the list and that iceberg ahead would be getting larger and larger.
Oh well, kids eh?!
Modem? :)
Hahah, or in my case when I'm in the same situation and I present the usual elementary finance questions such as "Where's the income and who's controlling it?" Can't answer this? You will fail*
* OK, there is a very, very, very slim chance that you'll muddle by somehow and attract some VC to pour money down the drain but otherwise yes, you will fail**.
** Unless your intention is to provide it as a free-time hobby in which case as long as it stays this way you'll be fine and with good planning you'll have a great time.
Rather than simply "use", the meaning of "leverage" is that you obtain much larger in return than what you exert. It is the standard expression used in sentences containing monopoly or market share.
It's the kind of words that makes lawyers go wobbly in the knees.
The whole premise fails on Andrews mischaracterisation of what CyanogenMod is: it's not an attempt to excise Google or it's apps (though that's an option for those that want it), it's about improving Android, filling the support gap left by device vendors, about all the things that make OSS fun to work on. There's a loosely symbiotic relationship with Google and the flow is both ways.
It's not clear how much value Cyanogen adds to that. Partnered with hardware manufacturers it would have better (any) access to drivers than the OSS version but if OEMs actually cared that would happen for CyanogenMod. They're failing because they don't offer much over the free versions and have behaved like dicks to far too many people, all in the pursuit of cash.
"They're failing because they don't offer much over the free versions and have behaved like dicks to far too many people, all in the pursuit of cash."
Indeed. That contract with Miramax killed them. It showed that they are happy to screw over other partners. Not a good thing if you want to sign up other companies...
The trouble is that, although people enjoy working on an Open Source project for a couple of years, the reality is that the skills needed for a project of this complexity are highly in demand. Anyone who can do serious work on a mobile phone OS for fun would easily get through first round of technical interviews anywhere.
Then $$$ happens, and being a "free project" means that Cyanogen can't compete.
I'm not sure about this at all. Since Cyanogen is already a perfectly well functioning phone os, it doesn't need that much improving to keep being functional enough for most purposes. I'd assume that the difficult and time consuming bit is the incessant need for porting the low-level parts of Cyanogen to each set of excitingly inconsistent phone hardware as new models are launched.
Mind you, I'm perfectly willing to be corrected on this. Any comments?
The incurable optimist in me hopes that this will give a boost to Jolla's Sailfish OS's chances of longevity.
The realistic pragmatist (aka cynic) in me thinks that Sailfish OS just isn't going to make it.
Which is a shame.
Because you'll prize my Jolla phone with a cracked screen from my cold, dead fingers.
So.... all of Cyanogen Inc's problems are due to Google cheating and abusing it#s power, and not at all due to CyInc being over-ambitious and making bad decisions. Did I summarize the article correctly?
Always funny to ses Andrew give us a glimpse into his world where facts don't matter if they collide with his world view.
Oh, and in case you want my answer to the question posed in the title: Kondrik did kill Cyanogen (Inc.).
Wordperfect was crap compared to MS Word.
Lotus, same compared to Excel.
DR-DOS was niche and more expensive than Windows which did the job.
OS/2 was even more expensive than Windows.
If IBM released OS/2 with DOS and Windows compatibility for less than Windows, it would sell. As it were, it was corporate greed that killed it completely. In Poland, IBM desperately tried with advertising when OS/2 Warp was released, but trying to sell for twice the price of Windows NT (not to mention consumer versions) meant that even with mostly positive reviews, it was doomed from the start. Microsoft Windows also offered significantly better Polish language support as opposed to OS/2, where it was supposedly the only truly negative aspect.
IBM decided that they would compete on features, but having more features does you no good when you can't read the screen text because it's garbled.
"DR-DOS was niche and more expensive than Windows which did the job."
I had DR-DOS because at the time it was cheaper than MS-DOS. What killed DR-DOS was the several months of the Win3.0 "beta-release" where its was regularily reported that Win3.0 would not run on DR-DOS as the beta wouldn't so lots of articles along the lines of "DR-DOS is good but if you're wanting Win3.0 then you'll need MS-DOS". Turned out that "problem" was by "accident" the Win3.0 startup relied on a particualr retrun value from some obscure part of the DOS API where DR-DOS provided the "wrong" value. Seem to recall that as soon as Win3.0 was released DR-DOS issued a patch within a day or two to fix this - they probably had been aware of the cause for some time but as they weren' officiallly allowed access to the beta they could make any comment until the release came out and by that time the damage had been done .... I for one switched from DR-DOS because of this - though I went to OS/2 2.0 instead of MS-DOS/Win3.0 but that's a whole other story!
Good, so you're asserting that MS took 90% of the PC market just because of its outstanding products, superior technology and low prices? We should only admire such a company!
And you wonder why it had to devise as many roadblocks for competitors as it could, if it had a so great advantage.
Microsoft had working OLE and was highly and rightly praised for it. None of their rivals included it for years after it became available and when they did, their implementation was years behind MS Office.
For whatever it's worth, Microsoft had a superior office suite that worked fine, particularly if your language wasn't English. For some reason, everyone just ignored language localization and then they tried to cry wolf that Microsoft had a monopoly and demanded local regulators to do something about it.
FYI, when I was younger, I was campaigning against Microsoft on behalf of these companies here in Poland. I didn't look into the details and took their claims for granted (hey, it was Micro$oft, so it was trendy to hate it). Years later, out of curiosity, I tried late-90s versions of Wordperfect, Lotus and other office software of which I can't remember the name, and I realized I was had. They were utter crap. Oh, sure, some of the things were nicer, better done, performance was better, but all of that was quite meaningless if you ran into issues trying to write in native Polish. I can't remember which program had it, but its keyboard shortcuts were hardwired and you couldn't change or even disable them. One such shortcut was Ctrl+z which was undo. But AltGr+z is ż, which is a fairly common letter in Polish. AltGr registers as Alt+Ctrl, and trying to type ż resulted in undoing your previous action. AltGr+o is ó, another common letter, but it also brought up the open file dialog and you never knew if it would put ó in the document or as the first letter of the filename in the dialog popup.
That made it completely unusable. There were many different gotchas in everything except MS Office. I don't know and I don't care if they used undocumented system calls, I don't care if they optimized their OS to better serve their own software. In the end, Microsoft's software worked and their competition's didn't. Microsoft spent time and effort on making that software as opposed to others who didn't want to, but gladly campaigned to essentially force Microsoft to pay them money.
Did I write a single word about Wordperfect, Lotus, DR-DOS or OS/2? Pretty sure I didn't.
Before you put on your tinfoil hat and look for clues how something Google or any other third party did may have led to the downfall of Cyanogen Inc., look at their own words and actions first.
"We will take Android away from Google" (or whatever the exact quote was) was something Kondrik said. And if that is not a sign of an inflated ego, I don't know what is.
The deal with that Indian phone company that collided with an already established contract with OnePlus is another example of how Cyanogen Inc. hurt themselves.
Praising the independence from Google and then bundling Microsoft apps with Cyanogen OS.
And the list goes on.
All that were steps in the wrong direction that Caynogen Inc. made, nobody else.
Ever heard of Occam's Razor? The simple solution (they did it themselves) is more likely than a convoluted conspiracy theory that Google is to blame.
Microsoft was already scamming Android phone manufacturers out of license fees or patent settlements or "vigorish", whichever term you like. CM may have threatened to have an effect on that stream, but it also offered a way to compete with Android (and in a hurtful parasitic way, MS's favorite mode) when WM's market share was obviously foundering.
MS bobbled as usual and lost the moment, if it ever had a notion of the potential in the first place. I remember thinking it might turn interesting, but of course it didn't. MS doesn't even know which game it's playing. And everyone else doesn't understand the game Google is playing until they're on to the next one. Which won't last forever, but right now is amusing in a black humor sort of way.
There is still time to make CM into something higher. If a consumer could "update" their phone easily to CM via a simple app or storefront, it included its own app-land and cloud space so no gmail account required or wanted, and the updates were kept up, it might gain ground, esp if tech-friends recommended it and supported it a bit. Which would be more support than mainstream Android offers. They could also license it so that Google wouldn't be able to directly use the code, requiring them to invest in copying each innovation.
More than half the Android devices I've owned had 3rd party app stores (sometimes more than 1) preinstalled. None of those stores got any use after a quick trial. The Orange OSF had it's own mail, maps, store and I forget what else, all instantly disabled.
People have this dream that replacing the Google framework and apps will make them irresistible to customers and wildly rich as a result. Most customers neither care or find the replacement efforts worthy. The minority that do want to avoid Google, install CyanogenMod and choose their own apps.
CM are free to try what Amazon, Sony (3 fscking store apps on my Xperia), most Chinese phones, every carrier and most OEMs have failed to achieve but it won't save their business because there are more blowhards pretending they hate Google than actual customers prepared to do something about it.
Anyone read Dan Lyon's (Fake Steve Jobs) 'Disrupted'? *
https://www.amazon.com/Disrupted-My-Misadventure-Start-Up-Bubble/dp/0316306088
Pretty funny with a lot of "get those kids offa my lawn" snarkiness. But one of his stronger points is the jibes against spray and pray investing with other folks' $ in companies that have no clue. And also bizarre corporate cultures Trump-ing business common sense.
To be fair, I don't think Cyanogen was a hopeless company from the start - it woulda seemed a good bet.
*disclaimer: no affiliation whatsover, got it for $1.99 or so on a cheapo Amazon Kindle promo. Well worth it at that price, not sure so @ $10+.
Cynogen fell for the same lies that the handset makers fell for: the belief that they could take Googles OS and differentiate it enough to compete against other handset makers/vendors. It was the same bate and switch that Nokia pulled with Symbian. The "bait" was AOSP as an "open platform" that allowed companies to create proprietary apps and skins/launchers to differentiate their handsets. The "switch" has been the exclusivity that Google has hammered into contracts. To get the Android license your skin and launcher need to be substantially the same Googles design. Proprietary apps don't run unless they use the higher level proprietary Google APIs. The only access vendors have to the big social apps is through Googles app store. You only get the Google API and Playstore through the Android contract. Surprise, your screwed!
Just wait until they make ART the only supported runtime on Android licensed handsets. Then they will have closed everything off entirely.
The only way to protect our freedom of communications is to design an entirely open source system from the hardware up, without corporate/government interference. Seeing as the Linux kernel is now the domain of big business, I think it's time the world started looking at alternatives to that as well.
cyanogenMOD killed battery life, i know that for sure, i would have told everyone i know about it and installed it for them (if they wanted) if only power management didn't suck.. reminded me of Linux on laptops half a dozen years back, power management sucked then too on Linux, with only suspected fanbois claiming it actually extended battery life. on untweaked stock ROM was 2 days, running CyanogenMod - it was less than a day. slightly improved after tweaking, result, stock won, cyanogenmod lost. Next.
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