Cyanogen has been been around reimagining mobile computing by giving users the ability to customize their mobile devices and content experiences. Cyanogen OS, its operating system, is built on Android, and is rapidly growing with a global user base and developers.
Now it's going to stop. The company will no longer build its fully-stacked Android fork.
The decision follows the realignment of co-founder Kirt McMaster’s role from CEO to Executive Chairman; COO Lior Tal will take McMaster's place.
So instead of pursuing its dreams of becoming the third big mobile platform, it will now focus on a new Modular OS program.
This program allows smartphone makers to have the opportunity to introduce "intelligent, customizable Android smartphones using different parts of the Cyanogen OS via dynamic modules and MODs, with the ROM of their choice, whether stock Android or their own variant," according to new CEO Tal.
The decision to create a new OS is noted by Tal. In his blog post announcing "The Future of Cyanogen" on October 10th, 2016, he said that the move to ditch its full-stack OS business was because the Android ecosystem is extremely fragmented. This has caused manufacturers to focus on efficiency while compromising investment in software and services.
Modular OS program, according to Cyanogen, will allow value, independence and intelligence to flow freely between the layers of the ecosystem, providing more companies and developers with the freedom to borrow from, unite and utilize our technology in new and innovative ways."
The other reason for the introduction of this program is to help ensure that various devices are kept up to date, especially the lower end models which tend to be abandoned fairly quickly if compared to the move expensive counterparts.
Cyanogen's first venture into modularity was with the MOD program. This enabled partners to tweak deeper in to the Android ecosystem to create a custom OS.
For example, Microsoft that has partnered with Cyanogen on the MOD platform, has added Skype to the Android dialer while enabling Cortana to take voice-activated selfies.
This program however, required a fully-stacked OS, a laborious and ultimately limiting feature, said Tal.
With Modular OS, manufacturers should now be able to ship their phones using discrete aspects of the Cyanogen OS. These phones can use the stock Android OS, but have custom features and apps taken from Cyanogen.
CyanogenMod is one of the most popular third-party ROM. With Cyanogen stopping its focus on mobile OS development could have serious implications in the future for those in the Android rooting community.