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posted by martyb on Monday August 31 2015, @07:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the cant-get-here-too-soon dept.

In an interesting mobile development, Linux.com reports that four new phones are shipping with cyanogen as their base.

After many delays, all four major mobile Linux alternatives to Android have finally arrived on smartphones. Mozilla's Firefox OS was first out of the gate two years ago, followed by Jolla's Sailfish OS, and this year they were joined by the first Ubuntu and Tizen phones. Yet, a fifth open source mobile Linux platform may have already eclipsed them all. The CyanogenMod flavor of Android is rapidly expanding from its role as the most popular alternative mobile phone mod for flashing onto Android phones to being a much sought after pre-installed OS.

This week, a UK-based company called Wileyfox joined a growing number of third-party vendors to tap the commercial Cyanogen OS 12.1 version of the fully open source CyanogenMod with its new Swift and Storm phones. Meanwhile, a Lenovo-backed Chinese startup called ZUK announced plans to ship an international version of its ZUK Z1 phone equipped with the same 12.1 Cyanogen build starting in September. CyanogenMod 12.1 is based on the latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop platform.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @07:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @07:39PM (#230402)

    Heres hoping it makes putting Omnirom on the devices easier. Much happier reducing the backdoors open to third parties, google, phone manaufactures and service prividers. I'm not convinced the commercialized version of cyanogen are on my side, which is a shame really but they appear to be doing well for themselves.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Monday August 31 2015, @07:48PM

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Monday August 31 2015, @07:48PM (#230405)

    there is no one I trust to make a phone anymore. google has their agenda and their o/s is crap; after so many years, its still crap and its update story is a joke.

    apple is what apple is; they don't care, they have hipsters and rich folks buying their gear and the walled garden never bothers those folks; but it would bother me.

    MS? nah. can't buy hardware from them if they had anything to do with the software side of it.

    who's left? no one, really. each maker has his agenda and its NOT about user freedom or privacy.

    the whole phone thing is a non-starter for me. if I was a 20something, not knowing how things used to be (we used to OWN our gear), I might be into phones; but as an older guy, I could not get interested in how things have de-evolved in the mobile computing arena.

    I find it strange that google took linux, changed so much (spending too much time breaking things for no good reason) that even as an experienced unix guy, I cannot do anything useful (admin-wise) on my phone. its as if its an entirely different thing from the desktops and servers, and yet it did not have to be! they spent effort making it 'not the same'.

    the phone market is forever lost. if you enjoy your 'smart phone', more power to you; but for me, I am not enthusiastic about the whole market. all the wrong people and companies are now part of it and its ruined.

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Monday August 31 2015, @09:43PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Monday August 31 2015, @09:43PM (#230463)

      I was going to add this in my reply to an earlier message, but decided it wasn't relevant. But... your comment is more in tune to what my intent was.

      I agree, that's too bad about the loss of choice with MS's involvement. Our best interests are not likely to reflect what they've decided our best interests are.

      I take a longer view than just the immediate funding, I wonder why. They had Nokia, and that didn't go quite as well as one could have hoped. So why this?

      I am guessing that there will be the likely forced additional inclusion into the whole tracking by design because the free to play security model that adopted a think-of-the back-to-school-sales-for-children atmosphere. It is hard to compete in the cell phone market without the financial resources of a large corporation or lots of dedicated people willing to provide their efforts for free.

      Perhaps an included feature will include ratting out the users with regular reports sent in cleartext email to the parental unit/assigned authoritative figure associated with management of the device?

      Windows 10 seems to be making headway into how to best violate the privacy of youth, perhaps you've seen how Windows 10 helps parents keep track of their kids with the family account features that surprised many people with the level of spying it did automatically. Cynogen, I am sure, is now ripe for improvement. Perhaps there will soon be the Cynogen; now embeded with Skype by default version? I am sure the telemetry is indicating that's what everyone wants.

      Anyway, the phone ecosystem MS purchased is now open to refinement based on the hit that Windows 10 has become.

      I am sure that once that convenience of granular reporting on user activity is accepted as forced and then accepted by default, providing the Windows 10 tie in of being able to do it on an android phone would be wonderful selling point for mom and dad. Track where your kids/employees/citizens are AND listen to and see what they are doing AND get a transcripted report on the sites they visit and emails they send and who is in contacts and how long they use given applications and...

      But I am sure those guys at cynogen are not sellouts and wouldn't turn on their user base like that; presuming they remained involved after their cash out. I am not sure what level of power they actually have compared to what they feel they have. Or even if they have control of the source any longer.

      I do commend the Cynogen guys for listening to what users wanted, and giving them some of that. Microsoft had to get involved (someone had to) likely because of their success, so they could attach themselves to cool or what have you. Or to make sure that users don't keep getting listened to in that way and features aren't provided without corporate ideology influencing it. Things won't keep happening like it used to, but the good times may not have ended with them quite yet.

      It's too bad that when we wish for things in IT, we get the monkey's claw version of the wish instead of the I dream of genie version. I'd rather get a klutzy half-assed attempt from something that looks good than an evil curse.

    • (Score: 1) by Eunuchswear on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:09PM

      by Eunuchswear (525) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:09PM (#230836) Journal

      there is no one I trust to make a phone anymore.

      So make your own [neo900.org].

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by etherscythe on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:13PM

        by etherscythe (937) on Tuesday September 01 2015, @06:13PM (#230919) Journal

        Wake me up when it reaches production. I wanted a Jolla, which is technically in production, but does not fully work with the providers in my area (USA), and is not officially sold here. To say nothing of the beta-level quality of the software itself, even if the concept is great. Meanwhile, I needed a new phone when my original N900 had a stroke and no longer quite works properly.

        Ah, to live in the future, when all of these problems have been solved... except there will always be new problems to solve, won't there?

        --
        "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Eunuchswear on Wednesday September 02 2015, @09:51AM

          by Eunuchswear (525) on Wednesday September 02 2015, @09:51AM (#231177) Journal

          Sailfish is "beta level"? Works OK for me.

          Yes it's a bugger that the Jolla doesn't do American frequencies.

          You could run Sailfish on a Nexus 5 if you wanted.

          --
          Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
          • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:45PM

            by etherscythe (937) on Wednesday September 02 2015, @05:45PM (#231366) Journal

            You could run Sailfish on a Nexus 5 if you wanted

            In theory, yes. I haven't checked in some months but finding an actual build (rather than an announcement that "it's coming!") proved to be quite fruitless when I was evaluating my options for a new phone around March. The Jolla device/tablet might work better. I also tried an early release build of the Android launcher that came with the Stella rebranded Angry Birds skin or some such, looked interesting. However it was quite clearly a preview and not a full production release. I could also, in theory, build it myself, but as a non-dev I simply don't have time to work through the minor issues that hold it back from being daily-use quality.

            --
            "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"