Today our favorite Android developer Steve “cyanogen” Kondik has just updated everyone with a few details and essentially a progress report of their popular CyanogenMod 9 project. While most of us are currently running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with CM7, many are patiently awaiting CM9 to officially land for their devices. Today Cyanogen himself had a few details to share with everyone on their official blog.
For those that don’t know, CyanogenMod is a custom ROM for Android built completely from the official Android source from Google — AOSP. They do everything the right way the first time and make some of the best, fastest, most highly customizable ROM’s for Android and are the number one developers for a reason. With CM9 comes Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and its many many changes. Both visually and under the hood.
Sadly Android 4.0 ICS was such a huge change both visually and graphically that most devices need improved and updated graphics drivers, and many other things that they simply cannot get until they are released from the respected manufacturers. Regarding CM9 for most devices this is what Steve had to say:
For many devices, our hands are tied. Some very clever workarounds have gone into CM9, but we’re still blocked on some subsystems like the camera.
With many devices getting essential functions such as camera drivers for pictures and video is just not possible. Releasing a less than stellar product with a main device functionality missing isn’t something they’d like to do — and wont be starting now.
There is good news here though. Being able to completely tackle a brand new OS with huge changes such as ICS, instead of Gingerbread has allowed them to completely take a second view of things. It’s allowed them to rethink everything, see what is truly useful and needed, and trash the rest. While we’ll still have the awesome tweaks, changes, and customizations we all know and love in CyanogenMod they will also be bringing the term “just works” to the ROM. Making sure everything is as smooth and stable as ever.
We’ve eliminated the CMParts app, instead choosing to add our custom features directly into the main settings. We hope to achieve a good balance between tweakability and a great out-of-the-box experience. I want your phone or tablet to feel like it should have come with CM9.
So there it is. They want our devices to feel like they came out-of-the-box with CM9. I’ve been wishing for an official CyanogenMod Phone for a long, long time and hopefully one day that comes true. In the meantime we can expect more devices with official CM9 support soon. Especially Samsung devices and some Qualcomm powered smartphones too. All the details and information in his words can be found on the CyanogenMod Blog.
