Android By Russell Holly Nov. 22, 2013 9:30 am
How do you go from being a group of developers spending their free time playing with an open source OS aimed at making phones do cool new tricks, to the team responsible for bringing the first third-party AOSP-based Android phone to market? I spent some time recently with the Cyanogen Inc. team to learn about how exactly that happened with the Oppo N1 CyanogenMod edition.
I found myself standing in front of a glass door in cold, rainy Seattle recently. This door had a familiar icon on it, one that gave me cause to sit and think about exactly what I was really looking at. There was also no one at the office yet, despite being well after 9am on a Tuesday, so I had some time to kill. The Cyanogen Inc. “Cid” face stared back at me from the glass panel, and I found myself incredibly excited to spend some time on the other side of the door. As a user, I’ve known and used CyanogenMod for years. I first installed it on my Nexus One, and have been following the team responsible for what was going on through this door ever since.
The Cyanogen Inc. team is a varied, complex group of individuals all clearly passionate about what they have set out to accomplish. This roughly 20 person team has already filled the office that they moved into only a few short months ago, but the team works around the clock so it’s only obvious that the place is packed when everyone is there at the same time. Many aspects of the day-to-day for these guys feels a lot like any other startup. They begin work by discussing what happened the day before and what is needed from each team member that day. As a group they discuss pain points and positive developments, and it’s clear that everyone has a voice and there’s no downside to expressing your opinion about much of anything.
There’s a lot of things that CyanogenMod was able to get away with as a rag tag group of part-time developers that they are now trying to address as a company. That process will take some time to work itself out, but the most important development so far is the release of the CyanogenMod Installer.
This week in particular was special for the CM team, because it included appearances from the few remote team members the company has. The team was also right up against several self-imposed deadlines, so having everyone within shouting distance turned out to be a very good thing. The majority of the company was laser focused on a single objective: preparing the Oppo N1 CyanogenMod Edition for release.
Cyanogen’s members are no strangers to porting their custom flavor of Android to just about anything. In fact, it’s their diverse catalog of supported devices that has helped make them as popular as they are today. The Oppo N1 is different though, for several reasons. First, this is much more than a port. CM on the Oppo N1 includes support for all of the unique hardware that is included with the smartphone, as well as many of the software features that Oppo themselves made available for the Color OS version of the N1. Second, and perhaps more important than the hardware itself, the N1 running CyanogenMod will attempt to be the first phone of its kind to achieve Google’s CTS certification.
Next page: Getting Google’s stamp of approval…
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How do you go from being a group of developers spending their free time playing with an open source OS aimed at making phones do cool new tricks, to the team responsible for bringing the first third-party AOSP-based Android phone to market? I spent some time recently with the Cyanogen Inc. team to learn about how exactly that happened with the Oppo N1 CyanogenMod edition.I found myself standing in front of a glass door in cold, rainy Seattle recently. This door had a familiar icon on it, one that gave me cause to sit and think about exactly what I was really looking at. There was also no one at the office yet, despite being well after 9am on a Tuesday, so I had some time to kill. The Cyanogen Inc. “Cid” face stared back at me from the glass panel, and I found myself incredibly excited to spend some time on the other side of the door. As a user, I’ve known and used CyanogenMod for years. I first installed it on my Nexus One, and have been following the team responsible for what was going on through this door ever since.
The Cyanogen Inc. team is a varied, complex group of individuals all clearly passionate about what they have set out to accomplish. This roughly 20 person team has already filled the office that they moved into only a few short months ago, but the team works around the clock so it’s only obvious that the place is packed when everyone is there at the same time. Many aspects of the day-to-day for these guys feels a lot like any other startup. They begin work by discussing what happened the day before and what is needed from each team member that day. As a group they discuss pain points and positive developments, and it’s clear that everyone has a voice and there’s no downside to expressing your opinion about much of anything.
There’s a lot of things that CyanogenMod was able to get away with as a rag tag group of part-time developers that they are now trying to address as a company. That process will take some time to work itself out, but the most important development so far is the release of the CyanogenMod Installer.
This week in particular was special for the CM team, because it included appearances from the few remote team members the company has. The team was also right up against several self-imposed deadlines, so having everyone within shouting distance turned out to be a very good thing. The majority of the company was laser focused on a single objective: preparing the Oppo N1 CyanogenMod Edition for release.
Cyanogen’s members are no strangers to porting their custom flavor of Android to just about anything. In fact, it’s their diverse catalog of supported devices that has helped make them as popular as they are today. The Oppo N1 is different though, for several reasons. First, this is much more than a port. CM on the Oppo N1 includes support for all of the unique hardware that is included with the smartphone, as well as many of the software features that Oppo themselves made available for the Color OS version of the N1. Second, and perhaps more important than the hardware itself, the N1 running CyanogenMod will attempt to be the first phone of its kind to achieve Google’s CTS certification.
Next page: Getting Google’s stamp of approval…
- [h=4]Oppo camera closed[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 Geek[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo camera profile[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo camera front[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo camera extended[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 HTC One Max compare[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo O Click fob[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 Easter Egg[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 back[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 Camera[/h]
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- [h=4]Oppo N1 CM Edition[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 CM O Click Menu[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 Touch Pad[/h]
- [h=4]Oppo N1 CM[/h]
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