CyanogenMod 9 Starts Legacy Device Cut-Off With Qualcomm
Those of you familiar with the most famous Android ROM in existence will be less than thrilled to hear news of their first big cut-off of legacy devices with the Qualcomm Snapdragon S1. This chipset will not be supported by the hacker developer ranks of CyanogenMod's team starting with CyanogenMod 9. This version of the software is based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich while CyanogenMod 10, based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, has not yet been announced with limits.
The CyanogeMod team have been very clear on why they're ready to cut off the chipset made by Qualcomm, starting with its internal memory. With the chipset known as S1, working out CyanogenMod 9 would have required a full repartitioning of internal memory. As the announcement made this week reads, this "would have required compromises in the CyanogenMod code that we are not willing to make."
"The pieces just aren't there", they've announced, noting that though the capability is there for ICS and/or Jellybean ROMs to run on these devices, they simply do not feel the experience is worth all the work. Have a peek at some extended comments from the team here and let us know if you agree with their newest move.
"To measure our releases, we use the same subjective criteria as users do: "speed", "jank", "butter", but also factor in user experience (UX) and other intangibles. However, beyond this is something that we can (and do) use as a 'pass or fail' mechanism, the Android Compatibility Test Suite. The CTS is used by device manufacturers to ensure that their changes to Android source do not break Android API, platform and other standards. This, in turn, brings stability to the Play Store for app developers. Breaking CTS would lead to a bad and inconsistent experience for app devs, which in turn would lead to a bad experience for you guys as users. If CyanogenMod was perceived to be blatantly violating CTS, developers could eventually blacklist CyanogenMod users from using their apps (or worse, Google could blacklist CyanogenMod from the Play Store altogether). No one would win by going down that path." – CyanogenMod Developers
For those of you wondering, the model names of devices that are affected by this cut-off are as follows, per the CyanogenMod team: "blade, bravo, bravoc, buzz, c660, click, cooper, desirec, e510, e720, es209ra, espresso, hero, heroc, inc, legend, liberty, morrisson, motus, one, p500, passion, robym, s5670, supersonic, tass, u8150, u8220, z71, zero."
Check out the timeline below to get additional insight on CyanogenMod and stick around as we follow the development of version 9 and 10 into the future!
[via +CyanogenMod]