Cyanogen Inc.'s business model is to license an improved version of Android to phone manufactures who want something better than what their competitors have; large manufactures do a bunch of customizations themselves (MotoBlur, TouchWiz, HTC Sense), but smaller manufactures are often left with "what you get from Android". However, to get the Play Store, as well as other first-part Google apps, a device has to pass Google's strict compliance tests. This is thereby Cyanogen's first customer, and a demonstration that their model is not fundamentally flawed (Google didn't deny the phone during certification testing did to some weird changes CyanogenMod has accumulated over the years, and a manufacturer wanted their product enough to get all the way through that process). If you were trying to value the company, I'd say a lot of the risks of their business model just got removed: they should be worth a ton more today than they were yesterday.

> However, to get the Play Store, as well as other first-part Google apps, a device has to pass Google's strict compliance tests.

If you're talking about officially, when the device is shipped, then this is true. However, one of the first steps after installing a custom rom is to flash a Google Apps package for your device (which includes Google Play). People still install Google's applications without the device passing any test.

I would quibble with even that, as those "Google Apps packages" are often themselves from sketchy sources... but even so, being some unofficial process done by a user is not really relevant from the perspective of a shipping device purchased through a carrier...

I have a CyanogenMod-enabled phone and haven't installed Google's apps on it. I got some open-source stuff and that's it. It's a two-year old Galaxy S (first gen) and battery now lasts for 8 days.

Seriously? With "normal" amount of calls? I would love to hear more... Battery life is my biggest gripe with the smartphones.

I don't know what's normal to you. It's a backup phone, using a PrePay plan on another network (prepays are pretty cheap in my country) and indeed I'm making less calls with it than with my primary. I'm also keeping it off the data-network, unless I need to connect.

So basically I use it as a dumb phone and it's a pretty good dumb phone.

Not having (or using) LTE helps quite a bit, since it's still fairly new technology with a lot of optimization still needed. Also the fact the Galaxy S has a 4" screen. Galaxy S lives on most of all from being nearly identical to the Nexus S, so it can borrow a lot from it.

Yes, but Google also turns a blind eye to that, and by and large CM and other custom ROMs stay compatible anyway. Google could, however, start cracking down if custom ROMs started causing problems.

> However, to get the Play Store, as well as other first-part Google apps, a device has to pass Google's strict compliance tests.

The thing I wondered about when I saw this is whether there will now be a legitimate path for getting Google Play on Cyanogen-modded devices now. I kind of get the feeling not, based on what you're saying.

Thanks!