Android news might still be ringing abut Cyanogen, Inc.’s partnership with Microsoft to preload the latter’s apps into Cyanogen OS. While this is no different from Samsung’s similar deal, the fact that it is Cyanogen making it has caused a stir among the Android community, particularly those in the ROM community. The ramifications of this business move is a topic fit for another day, on a post of its own. In the meantime, however, CyanogenMod, not Cyanogen, is assuring its users that it isn’t taking a similar path.
There is a very thin but hard line that separates CyanogenMod from Cyanogen, Inc. CyanogenMod is purely an open-source and community-driven initiative while Cyanogen, Inc. is a business that builds on top of it. They may not see eye to eye sometimes, like in this case, but they share a common goal, not to mention a common codebase, to give their users the best mobile platform that they can. It just so happens that for Cyanogen, that involves striking up deals that would displace Google’s sovereignty in that area.
CyanogenMod, however, is less concerned about dethroning Google and it isn’t making any such move. In short, it won’t be preloading apps from Microsoft or any of the other Cyanogen OS apps that have been announced, like Boxer and Baton. While users are, of course, free to install these themselves, CyanogenMod isn’t going to start shoving them into their ROMs, leaving it up to the user to decide whether to go with Google, Amazon, F-droid, or even Microsoft.
In other non-Microsoft News, the Android 5.1 based CyanogenMod 12.1 is all but ready to go into nightly production. As the first round of nightlies, users are cautioned that there might be a few hard bumps on the road. They will also need to find a compatible gapps version if they want Google apps. Less adventurous users are advised to wait for M releases or even later, more tested nightlies instead.
SOURCE: CyanogenMod
