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10 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
The Smartphone Wars: Samsung Busts a Move?
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<p>Well, now, this is interesting. Cyanogen hints via Twitter that we <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/cyanogen/status/136313427248431104">may get a 4.0 Cyanogen ROM in two months</a>.</p>
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<p>The <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57326616-264/want-android-4.0-wait-2-months-says-cyanogen/">news coverage</a> I’ve seen so far misses what I think is the most important bit of context – that Cyanogen’s eponymous founder and lead developer got hired by Samsung a few months back. Samsung is subsidizing this move.</p>
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<p><span id="more-3950"></span></p>
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<p>There are obvious reasons for Samsung to have hired Cyanogen that don’t have anything to do with this tweet…heck, if I were running an Android port team he’d certainly be at the top of <em>my</em> list.</p>
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<p>But I wonder. Is this, maybe, in part Samsung turning up the heat on its competition? Or preparing to?</p>
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<p>There’s been a lot of <a href="http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support">disgruntled talk</a> about laggy and skipped upgrades for Android phones. Up to now I think this has mostly been a non-issue, because the app developers’ API compatibility target was really 2.2 or later and upgrades since then have mattered very little in other than cosmetic ways.</p>
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<p>But with 4.0 issuing this could change. So…watch Samsung’s tempo on over-the-air upgrades, and watch to see if the Cyanogen project executes on making installation of its ROM on EOLed Samsung hardware substantially easier, perhaps with some sort of look-ma-no-hands PC-based universal installer.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’m just speculating. But Cyanogen with Samsung’s backing is a different and more formidable creature than Cyanogen as some guys in garages. What, if anything, does Samsung hope to gain from that alliance? An underexamined question; perhaps the 4.0 cycle will bring us some answers.</p>
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