You might have had some doubts about how legit this new Vsenn modular phone is, but this announce could perhaps put you at ease just a bit. Vseen is announcing the start of its “Approved ROM Partner” (ARP) program and the first ROM to be part of it is Android Open Source Paranoid Android or AOSPA, more popularly known simply as Paranoid Android. If all goes according to Vsenn’s plan, this will be the ROM’s first partnership with an OEM, though it doesn’t actually mean it will ship on it by default.
Knowing the time and hard work that was put into Project Ara, it is only understandable that some would raise an eyebrow at the revelation of Vsenn’s module phone attempt. The project is leaning on an the clout of a “former Nokia Android X program manager”, which might not hold water in some mobile circles. But considering we deal with rumors and leaks day in and day out, some of which never come to pass, we’ll take Vsenn for what it is, but with a pinch of salt nonetheless.
Being an approved ROM doesn’t mean that Paranoid Android will be the default Android experience on the device, unlike the setup that Cyanogen has with OnePlus. This just means that if users install a ROM that is part of Vsenn’s ARP, they will not have to miss out on some proprietary features of the device, like noise reduction algorithms. If one remembers, such DRM-based functionality have been a major stumbling block in just unlocking some Xperia devices’ bootloaders. This means that such users will be able to enjoy the best of both worlds, taking advantage of PA’s unique features without losing out on Vsenn’s.
This is quite a welcome concept, especially for a project that is attempting to design a modular phone. It will be interesting to see what Project Ara will have in this aspect as well, though we can presume that Google’s initial implementation would be a bit too delicate to immediately put third-party ROMs on it. That said, at this point, we still know so little about Vsenn’s device to put it dead center in our radars.
SOURCE: Vsenn
That’s cool I guess but PA is losing traction. Their team is rude to people openly on social media and their rom is really basic aside from a few asthetic features the lollipop 5.0 kind of trumps. It’s good however that there’s attention being brought to the aftermarket rom scene. I think it’s going to bring about a much needed refresh to design change when building phone software.