I've been a fan of CyanogenMod for years. My brother and I ported ICS [1] and Jelly Bean [2] versions of CM back to the original HTC G1. I've run it on every phone I've ever owned, and even had my parents running it for a time.

But it's hard to reconcile some of the public blunders that Cyanogen has made since becoming a company. Their OEM relationships with Oppo, OnePlus and Micromax seem haphazard and volatile, and it's not clear they present any real advantages to the consumer. As far as I know, the Oppo N1 isn't supported anymore, and while the OnePlus One is theoretically still supported at least in some markets, Jelly Bean is nowhere to be found, and OnePlus is off doing their own ROMs now.

Distractions like Nextbit's "Baton"[3] (a risky bet on an idea that doesn't appear to work with the majority of apps) leave me wondering what Cyanogen's real value proposition is.

It will be interesting to see where this is headed, and I hope CM remains faithful to their core community and support the maintainers that keep bringing to CM to the masses.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/24/2584340/android-4-0-aosp-... [2] http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/9/3229163/android-4-1-ported-... [3] https://nextbit.com/about/

I'm running CM12 on my OnePlus One right now and it's fantastic but I totally agree. There are a few other roms out there that I'm thinking about flashing.

I guess I should mention that I did have lots of bugs with CM11 but CM12 is running really stable for me. It's touch is way more responsive.

I also used Lollipop on Nexus 5 before I bought my OnePlus One and that was a bit more solid of an experience.

Well put.

Stock android is actually much more stable than the CM that ships with OnePlus. At least imho.

A friend is already selling his, after about 6 months with the phone. I haven't had it much longer but long enough to clearly see that stock android up to 4 offered much better usability.

The bugs I endure in the OnePlus just because I am sick of switching phones every year are borderline insufferable.

I'm actually planning on buying one and now you make me worried. What are the bugs you're encountering?

Ok get ready for a rant about 1st world problems.

It seems confused about sound. I had to uninstall Google Play completely so my official JBL OnePlus headset wouldn't start playing music in Google Play instead of Spotify.

These issues continued when I made my first audio recording. I was at the doctors and recorded the meeting, after that every time I try to play music from my headset it starts that audio recording. Even though the audio recording program is closed several reboots ago. Workaround is to open the phone, start spotify playing, pause, then I can use the headset as normal.

The worst bugs in a phone are bugs in the actual phone feature, imo. And in my case CM seems confused about the screen when I'm in a conversation. It's supposed to darken when I move the screen to my ear but it never lights up again when I move the phone away from my ear. Often I have to unlock the phone to end a call. The headset also seems unable to end calls, only answer them.

Waking up it's very sluggish, sometimes unresponsive. It has this "knock knock" feature where it wakes up if you tap the screen twice. This feature worked for a day or two when it was new, then stopped working for several weeks until I tried installing a stock android image on it and failed, reverted to CM and then the knock-knock worked again.

Even though the knocking works to wake it up, it often will not accept input for those first few taps after it wakes up so you end up having to erase your unlock code and start over a lot.

And speaking of stock android. Since none of my friends with stock android phones, nor me with my Nexus 7 at home, seemed to suffer these issues I decided to try the official stock android images from OnePlus.

I ended up in a reboot loop issue that has been reported on the bug tracker and on the forums. The problem is that I can't have my sim lock on if I want to install the android image because then it keeps rebooting the phone as soon as I unlock it. So I had to revert back to CM because I didn't feel like disabling the sim lock was a good option.

I could probably go on if you give me some time to think about it, there are definitely more bugs that I have experienced in my short time with this phone.

On a personal note, I was intrigued by CM because I am a FOSS junkie and know that it's a fork of android. I've had phones like the N900, ZTE Firefox OS and Jolla in the past. I love ideas like Replicant. So you understand why I bought the OnePlus. But in retrospect I should have just gotten an Xperia or an HTC since they have both provided models with unlocked boot loaders and Sony have even opened up their Android source code.

I haven't had any of these problems myself. I get what you mean with "wakeup is somewhat sluggish", but I believe that is because of an option that prevents the screen from accidentally turning on when it is your pocket, and that can be disabled.

The only bug I've had is that it refused to automatically connect to a particular wifi network. I fixed that by removing the network and adding it again.

I have couple more (definitely having an issue at the end of call having screen locked)

- sometimes it starts playing my Shuffle player out of blue, while being in pocket (but for last months it didn't happen)

- sometimes my Sygic car navigation fails to catch up in plain open terrain for very long time (though this might not be related to OS at all)

- if phone is not on cable, I can be 1 hour next to known wifi and it will still use my limited 3g connection. Once i turn on screen, in 2-3 secs it's in. Same goes for some messaging apps (ie whatsapp)

overall OK phone for the price (especially when seeing colleague's Moto X being bricked/losing all data few times from google's updates), but far from bugless.

>- if phone is not on cable, I can be 1 hour next to known wifi and it will still use my limited 3g connection. Once i turn on screen, in 2-3 secs it's in. Same goes for some messaging apps (ie whatsapp)

I just remembered this happens to me too.

CM also phones home on an opt-out basis, and they even wanted to remove the option to opt-out. They also still give data to Google.

https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-...

I'd say it's more important that most CM installations include play services, which is doing who knows what in the background.

But at least the changes above are open source, and you can see what's going on. Or if they go too far, someone else can pick up the baton and move on. It's becoming more difficult for that to happen from stock Android, as more functionality and applications become reliant on play services, which can ultimately only be installed on terms set by Google.

I hadn't even heard of those devices. I used to use Cyanogenmod on my G1, as 2.1 wasn't officially supported. I also put it on my HTC Desire but the need to do it became less when newer devices properly supported WiFi and Bluetooth tethering. I do not see how further fragmentation of the Android system (that is, additional markets) is a good thing when Amazon market / Google Play / endless Chinese markets are all around. Given the scope for malware in unchecked markets, another market and distributor surely isn't a good thing.

Additionally, what major phone manufacturers and carriers are going to go with this? If Android devices do not come with Google products (GMail / YouTube / Maps / Hangouts), are the devices as useful? I think not.

I'm an Open Source Engineer, working for Microsoft, living in Cyanogen Inc's former hq/office.

I don't know anything about this deal, but I adore how small Silicon Valley sometimes is.

I'm curious, what's does your job entail? This question partially stems from the obsolete understanding of Microsoft's relationship to open source, but also wondering how it compares to other open source business models that provide support for open source packages.

Happy to explain a bit! I work with developers out there, putting code on GitHub, contributing to other projects or making our own stuff work better with open source projects. I also "hack" on our new and upcoming products (we have a bunch of hardware announced and already out there where SDKs haven't been released yet), trying to see how well they play with "the open source world". I also visit dev conferences around the world, talking about the code we wrote and the lessons we learned.

My job is kind of awesome - I'm basically at a full-time hackathon, juggling my MacBook, Windows Notebook, a bunch Cloud solutions, some IoT devices and whatever our hardware teams come up with.

The team is brand new - and we're still hiring. Hit me up (felixrieseberg.com / @felixrieseberg) if you're interested!

Hey Felix, I will be joining Microsoft this summer ( Visual Studio Team ). Any Idea how one can move to working on Open Source stuff like you are doing.

I work at MSFT too, and have been involved with open sourcing a major project, called Bond[1]. I'm happy to chat about this offline, if you like. Email is in the profile.

The short answer is that there are divisions in the company with a direct imperative to open source things, so if your manager is willing to encourage this (easy enough to figure out), the answer is often yes. Like almost every company, we tend to open source tools but not products (e.g., yes to Orleans, but no to the game it supports, Halo), so from there it's a matter of finding a group that has such tools, or is open to developing them.

Felix (who works for my old boss -- hi Felix!) is a special case. He works for a team called strategic engagements, whose job (I hope he'll correct me if I'm wrong) is specifically to engage with the public, usually on their own terms, which often involves non-MSFT tech. _That_ is an uncommon job, but if you want to talk to people in the group, just ping me when you get here and I'll put you in touch with the dev manager for the group.

[1] https://github.com/Microsoft/bond

Hey! @hausdorff (Hi Alex!) below already commented on it, but feel free to hit me up. We do things with devdiv and there are a bunch of people who're into releasing things - just hit me up via email ([email protected]), I'm happy to chat about it!

I work on the team doing Visual Studio's Tools for Apache Cordova. While I don't work on the open-source side of the fence, we have engineers focused on contributing to Cordova.

Search the mailing list for "microsoft" (which picks up e-mail addresses) compared to "windows" to see where MS involvement picked up.[1]

A lot of Microsoft's involvements in open source are via MS Open Tech. See their website for more information about their contributions.[2] While this doesn't show checkins, here are their blog posts about Cordova.[3]

[1] http://callback.markmail.org/search/?q=list%3Aorg.apache.inc...

[2] https://msopentech.com/what-we-do/

[3] https://msopentech.com/blog/tag/cordova/

> I work on the team doing Visual Studio's Tools for Apache Cordova.

Ten years ago my head would have imploded reading that. I remember distinctly balmer saying that linux was a cancer.

What were his arguments against Linux? I've never anyone actually speak ill of the concept of GNU/Linux, aside from "cookiness" and so.

It's GPL'd, and any GPL'd code "infects" any codebase it's merged with (unlike MIT/Apache license).

I don't really get why that's important. Just because the kernel is GPL'd doesn't mean the drivers, WM etc. have to be.

That's kinda been my vision for how Linux may succeed on desktops/laptops. The GPL'd Linux kernel with almost everything else closed source. I realize I'm just describing Android.

I think the "cancer" part has to do with the GPL.

I scrolled through the comments looking for the obligatory hell freezing over snark remark.

Cyanogen is arguably the only creditable opposition to the Google Android hegemony. It's nice to see MS recognize that and support it. Too bad MS shut down the Nokia Android fork in its nascency.

It would be interesting to see if they can get more windows and windows phone compatibility into Android.

The new Nokia N1 uses Lollipop: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n1-6814.php

Sales: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2015/01/nokia-n1-doing-extremely-we...

Nokia Android fork lives. Stay tuned.

Hi, as a PM on this Nokia project, I want to point out that it's not a fork. We use vanilla Android Lollipop and our Z Launcher addition is entirely optional.

Thank you for correcting me. The N1 looks fascinating. Hope it will become available outside of China soon.

It will :)

I was just about to say it isnt a fork!

That's the company that still exists called Nokia, not MS Mobile, the hardware arm that Nokia sold, which until recently still sold phones as Nokia.

I recall fiddling with an HTC HD2, able to run both WP7 and Android ROMs (Froyo I think?). What a great device.

Back in 2010 I was given an HTC Touch Pro 2 that ran the positively ancient Windows Mobile (hence "given"). Someone had ported both Android and Ubuntu to it, and I used it with Android as my primary phone for some months. The hardware was great, the UX on Android was OK, but had enough quirks that it was replaced with an LG P500 (which lasted for 2.5 years; now that was a great phone).

Ugh I had a Touch Pro (the first one) on Alltel. It was a piece of junk. I ended up having four of them. Every time I took it back because something was broken, I waited for weeks to get a replacement to find out that the replacement had something else broken. Alltel was being bought by AT&T/Verizon at the time, so they weren't getting new phones and the Touch Pro was the best phone they had so they couldn't replace my phone with a new, similar phone. Sprint was giving everyone who had a Touch Pro a Touch Pro 2 for free, there were so many issues.

When I finally was able to get a new phone, I got a Palm Pre which was (and still is) the best phone I ever used until HP ruined it.

An HTC Touch Pro 2 was my primary device for years. It had the best keyboard that I have ever used on a phone. I've been trying to get used to software keyboards for three years, and I still _HATE_ them. Modern phones are worthless, and it's the lack of any means of inputting (discreetly - I hate talking at my phone) more than a few sentences that makes them junk.

Why don’t you just get a keyboard case then? I’ve no direct experience, but this[0] came up on my first search query and looks reasonable enough and inexpensive.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultrathin-Bluetooth-Slider-Keyboard-...

no you clearly do not understand AOSP..

Cyanogen follows Google AOSP rules and thus doe snot oppose Google in anyway shape or form..

and despite MS actions Nokia, the other part MS did not buy is going ahead with an android fork.

I think that's been true up until now, but Cyanogen has recently announce intentions to move away from dependence on Google.[0]

[0] http://www.androidauthority.com/cyanogen-google-kirt-mcmaste...

I cant help but think of Amazon's FireOS and that's not a good thing.

If you want an ecosystem completely controlled by only one company, there's always Apple.

If that means updates and security patches in a timely manner, and a roadmap for support for older devices, then that's good, surely???

And I say this running my XPeria S with Android 4.1.1 and my Motorola Xoom on 4.1, with my wife's Samsung S4 Mini running some 4.1 or 4.2 (and no notification light, it's stupid). Let's hope nobody finds out where my devices are on the Internet because they're likely full of security holes that will never ever be plugged.

Just because both vanilla Android and Cyanogen follow AOSP doesn't mean they can't compete. Just look at Samsung and Touchwiz.

> despite MS actions Nokia, the other part MS did not buy is going ahead with an android fork.

Can you provide a source for this please? I remember reading about the new Nokia N1 tablet but it was built and designed by foxconn and just branded by Nokia so I am not aware of any Android fork there...

Hi I'm a Nokia PM on this project. It's not an Android fork. Z Launcher is running on top of vanilla Android on the N1.

The "Android fork stuff" was part of Nokia Mobile Phones, so it ended up at Microsoft.

Nokia has the "Z Launcher" product which also the N1 tablet is running.

https://www.zlauncher.com

I think you're mixing up AOSP and Google Apps / Play Services.

AOSP is available under a standard open source license, and can be used by anyone under those terms. It's the use of Play Services and Google's Apps that requires specific permission and has relatively onerous terms. CyanogenMod can use Play Services, but it doesn't have to, and seems to be moving away from it entirely.

sources are: AOSP source agreement....the Android CTS which covers google OHA partners,etc..

But no one engages critical thinking and reads here

there is also Ubuntu Phone

I look forward to seeing Android devices powered by Microsoft apps/services in the future just so Google has a wee bit of competition!

We (at SweetLabs) have been proponents of this "Windroid" concept for some time, and I think Cyanogen is a very smart way for Microsoft to move forward. Our "Windroid" thoughts were written up last year if anyone is interested: http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/01/windroid-what-if-microsoft...

Maybe this is cynical, but this feels more like Microsoft trying to further disrupt Google's control over Android. MS knows that Cyanogen is ultimately bad for Google's Android progress. Cyanogen is an attempt to regain complete control over the devices we own, away from Google.

Google wants standardization and consistency, Cyanogen wants an "anything goes" environment. I'm not saying Cyanogen's goals are not admirable, but Google wants control over the Android ecosystem and they definitely don't want someone else with that control.

This would be like Microsoft funding companies that make it easier to jailbreak iOS.

As a user, Cyanogen is a great improvement over stock Android, no question. But there is zero hope of "regain[ing] complete control over the devices we own" without open-source radios and firmware. Just sayin'.

I agree about the lack of complete control. I am not sure putting your device under the control of another company (Cyanogen) instead of Google is a way of getting complete control either!

Until Replicant is usable, Cyanogen is the best we got.

At this point MS hates Google more than Linux/Android. This doesn't surprise me at all.

I'd throw Apple in there and call it a "hate triangle": MS hates Apple and Google, Apple hates MS and Google, while Google... I don't really know.

Google hates Amazon and Facebook.

Amazon has been expanding outside of their core retail space (e.g. AWS, advertising, services, etc) while Facebook has been eating Google's advertising dollars for a while.

I wouldn't go as far to say that Google doesn't care about Apple/Microsoft, but in both cases Apple has presents on their platforms and still makes money on them. They are only competitors if you view Android as something Google makes money with rather than something Google uses to advertise Google's services.

> Facebook has been eating Google's advertising dollars for a while.

All I've ever heard are horror stories about how advertising on Facebook does not work. I definitely don't see how ads on a social network can compete with ads on the largest search engine and almost every ad funded website in the world.

HN is famously... not neutral in regard to Google. Not necessarily because anyone's doing anything nefarious, but because early users came from certain places and formed a certain culture. You won't get a neutral perspective on Facebook's effectiveness here.

Facebook advertising has been very effective and profitable for at least some clients. I think Google+ shows that Google is terrified of Facebook. I have no knowledge of how Google's advertising revenue is doing, and wouldn't be at all surprised if they still dwarfed Facebook.

Using the Facebook platform for advertising can be extremely effective and profitable. Facebook Ads on the other hand have been lacklustre at best. They can be effective to drive activity to a Social campaign on Facebook, but are immensely less effective then google's ad products.

On the other hand, google knows it is likely just a matter of time before Facebook gets it right, and when they do they are one of the few companies who could complete at scale with google.

They're very different ad platforms. Google is great for targeting purchase intent. I think of Google ads sort of like coupons.

But people spend way more time on Facebook. It's entertainment, whereas Google is a tool. So brand advertising works better on Facebook. It's more like TV advertising.

Facebook's ad revenue share has been increasing, while Google's has been decreasing. In just two years, Google has gone from owning 10x as much ad revenue share as Facebook to just 2x [0]. Facebook has much more data on its users (age, location, school, etc) than Google which allows advertisers to target their ads much easier. It seems like Facebook is better if you want to narrowly reach a specific demographic since they know so much about their users, whereas Google is better if you just want to broadly reach a lot of people since they have such a dominant presence on the web. It depends on what you want as an advertiser, but there's definitely people who would prefer to spend their advertising dollars on a specific demographic.

[0]: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Driven-by-Facebook-Google-M...

I'm baffled to think that one company providing its own advertising for its own website is constituting such a huge portion of web ads in general, considering there are thousands of websites using Google Adsense that somehow live off the ad revenue.

anecdotally, I've never intentionally clicked on a google ad, but there's so far been 2 ads on facebook which directly led me to a purchase

Conversely, I have clicked on Google ads only to find that I have blocked the ad domain using my hosts file (which I had forgotten). I have never clicked on Facebook ads, as I don't have an account there.

Weird, I know. Actually, I do have an account but only used it to write a Facebook app for a client, not for actual use on that mini-Internet (kind of like Geocities isn't it?)

They probably all code on MacBooks, search using Google, buy their books off Amazon and I bet they all have a Facebook account.

Does MS hate Apple? I would wager they don't, since they have a patent cross-licensing deal with Apple and a couple partnerships (Apple uses Azure for iCloud and Bing for searching).

Google definitely hates MS, as evidenced by how childish they act when it comes to Windows Phone. Apple hates Google, Microsoft hates Google, Google hates Microsoft. I'd say that's likely how it goes.

Part of me is like "I can see how this makes sense," but another part is saying "this sounds like elementary school gossip..."

The human brain: simplifying complex issues with anthropomorphism since forever.

MS hating Apple is like Apple hating IBM; they're old wars and now the former enemies are new allies. Google/Samsung is the current war. For future wars, who can say?

What's important is that they all hate the customer together... Or at least have a healthy disdain thereof.

But Apple's whole M.O. is putting the customer first.

I don't think that MS and Apple hates each other (by MS and Apple I'm thinking about leadership and the general sentiment among engineers). But I'm pretty sure that MS and Apple hates everything Google.

I recently left Microsoft for a startup, but spent about 4 years there on several teams. From my experience nobody really hates anyone. The tech industry is still a fairly small community. Most everybody has friends who work at all the competitors and a significant amount of people have worked at several of the big companies. So while everyone competes, I don't think hate is the right word.

Generally, the fanaticism in HN comments is much stronger than the sentiment of anyone actually working at these places.

I don't think that MS hates Google so much, at least they are releasing Office for Android. Google on the other side, tries not only doesn't support Windows Phone, they also try to prevent MS themselfs to offer Google Support, like being seen on the Youtube App.

I don't know, but they are competitors in one huge market: desktop computers (sort of) and operating systems. If there's one company that's successfully taking down Windows, that's Apple (with Mac OS X).

> I don't know, but they are competitors in one huge market: desktop computers (sort of) and operating systems.

Kind of, but not really. Apple gives its operating system away for free, and sells hardware. Microsoft sells its operating system to OEMs and business customers. They aren't directly competing in the way that Coke and Pepsi are.

And Windows (of some version) still has >90% market share for desktop OSes, so OSX is not a credible threat to Microsoft in that space. Microsoft's biggest obstacle in the desktop OS space is Windows XP.

OS X is a credible threat to Microsoft in the high end desktop market, which is the only place where its OEMs can make money (and are not making money right now); the Windows ecosystem can't survive with 90% marketshare but only 40% profit share.

But Apple is more concerned these days in selling iPhones, which makes them a lot of money. And Microsoft wants in on that (disclosure: Microsoft employee, but speaking for myself).

No one in Silicon Valley gives a crap about desktops, all the growth is in mobile.

It all started from Google. One could say that Microsoft hatred is built into DNA of the company.

Why do you say that? I've been at Google for three years, and the only strong negative feeling I've observed towards MSFT was over the Mark Penn campaigns. Even then the response was mostly that the campus store should start selling the ties the Google guy in one of the ads wore, and ironically using "Scroogled" similarly to "Thanks, Obama".

Stuff like this:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/15/google-blocks-windows-pho...

http://www.windowscentral.com/new-policy-google-voice-means-...

I used to be a big Google fan (before and after becoming a Microsoft employee), but seeing Google continue to block WP apps actually made me decide to move to WP and off Google services as much as possible.

I don't get the complaint. Google obviously doesn't want to be in a position that it can't change how its ads are served because it's hard coded into a third party app they can't change, so they require it be done with HTML5. The requirement isn't a secret or a surprise and I highly doubt that Microsoft lacks the technical expertise to comply with it. It looks a lot more like Microsoft refusing a completely reasonable requirement so that they can make a stink about Google blocking them.

And complaining that there isn't an official version of some Google app for Windows Phone is like complaining there isn't an official version of Microsoft Office for Ubuntu or FreeBSD. Why would you even expect there to be?

My complaint - and I'm speaking as a consumer, who pays for devices and watches ads - is that Google doesn't provide apps for Windows platforms and blocks developers (Microsoft and 3rd party) who do.

For the YouTube case, neither the Android nor iOS app were built on HTML5. Why did the WP app need to be? And, fine, if it needs to run on HTML5, were there API's or metadata provided to allow showing the ads using HTML5 standards? Nope.

Same for Google Voice - they won't provide an app and won't allow other developers to provide one. I don't care about having an official Google app; I do care about them completely walling off access to one.

Starting around the Google+ days, I began to get a very clear sense that Google cared about their strategies a lot more than me as a user. As a long-time Google user - since Gmail beta, OG Droid user, etc. - this was a dramatic shift.

Compare this to pretty much everything Microsoft releases these days - published standards, open API's. They publish things for other platforms and encourage developers to access and extend theirs. That's a technology future I'd prefer to support.

> My complaint - and I'm speaking as a consumer, who pays for devices and watches ads - is that Google doesn't provide apps for Windows platforms and blocks developers (Microsoft and 3rd party) who do.

The problem is they're not really apps, they're services. Go ask Netflix if you can write a third party client for their service. Or Skype for that matter.

I'll be the first in line if you can get rid of all the useless DRM/telecoms regulation/whatever that makes these companies think this is necessary, but Google is if anything doing less of that than their competitors. At least they have platform-independent HTML5 versions of pretty much everything.

You have to admit the schadenfreude is delicious. Microsoft pushes DRM knowing full well it will disadvantage minority platforms and then it comes back to bite them now that they're the minority platform.

> published standards, open API's

It doesn't count when the standard just says "do it the way X version of Microsoft Office does it" without actually specifying what that is.

> Skype for that matter

Not really an issue because Skype releases clients for Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, PlayStation...

> Useless DRM/telecoms regulation

What's that in reference to? Haven't heard Google say anything about that.

> HTML5 versions of pretty much everything

Sort of. See this thread on Google Inbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8495257

And this for Google Hangouts: https://twitter.com/johnath/status/486575645338918912

> delicious

To me as I consumer, schadenfreude is never delicious when it affects me.

> It doesn't count when the standard just says "do it the way X version of Microsoft Office does it" without actually specifying what that is.

Which API are you talking about? There are published, documented API endpoints for all kinds of Office services: https://www.google.com/?q=office+apis

I wasn't just talking about Office, by the way. For example, part of the HoloLens announcement was the invitation for Oculus, Magic Leap and Google Glass devs to build on the holographic APIs (http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7865539/microsoft-windows-...).

Back to the original point - if a service provider won't provide an app, they should provide an API. Ideally both, but at least one. It's in their rights not to, but that's my cue to go somewhere else because that's not how I want to be treated.

> Not really an issue because Skype releases clients for Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, PlayStation...

It's still kind of an issue if you want to run it on SteamOS, Solaris, FirefoxOS, Tizen, BeOS/Haiku, Plan9, all the different BSDs, etc. etc.

You can't expect anybody to support everything.

> Sort of.

Yes, Chrome-only for the brand new bleeding edge stuff is stupid. But it doesn't actually exclude any platforms because chromium is open source and anyone can port it to whatever you like. And then they end up supporting other browsers anyway.

> To me as I consumer, schadenfreude is never delicious when it affects me.

Yeah, I was a little confused about that. It seems like you were saying that Windows Phone users are having a hard time so you decided to switch to it. In which case it affecting you would seem to be intentionally self-inflicted.

> Which API are you talking about?

The "standard" for OOXML that Microsoft pushed through so they could say it was a "standard" even though the standards document was essentially entirely written by Microsoft and didn't provide all the information necessary to actually implement it correctly.

> Back to the original point - if a service provider won't provide an app, they should provide an API.

What you're really saying is that they should always provide an API, because nobody is going to provide an app for each of 10,000 different platforms. And I completely agree. But YouTube is doing the same as Netflix/Hulu/HBO and Google Voice is doing the same as Skype/MagicApp/Vonage. Blame all of them or none of them.

First, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. Good points, and it's nice to have avoided Godwin's law in a thread this deep.

> Skype

I fundamentally agree with you. Skype does support way more platforms than just about any service I can think of, especially when you consider Skype for Web beta (http://blogs.skype.com/2014/11/14/please-welcome-skype-for-w...). But I agree that nobody can support every platform.

> Chrome

Kind of true, but not all platforms can or will support arbitrary browsers. Worse, as a user I should never have to run multiple browsers just to use a web app. Extra chagrin here because holy cow this is the web we're talking about, and Google's established a pretty clear pattern over the past year of Chrome-only dev that should be pretty worrying to anyone that cares about web standards.

>shadenfreude

In my case, I decided that I was irritated enough at Google's actions that I'd rather not have Google apps on my phone apps than support their ecosystem. Plus, I genuinely prefer Windows Phone as a platform.

>OOXML

That was 2006, the same year jQuery was first released. Cars and Da Vinci Code were big movies that year. That was before Windows Vista shipped. It was a long time ago. If that's your reference on Microsoft's standards support, it's not the full picture.

>Blame all of them or none of them

I'll blame them all then, but I definitely feel like Microsoft's by far the least bad in this area. I'm disappointed, when I first got excited about the Android platform, I had high hopes that it would be something else. I ran early releases in VM's before phones were available. I was excited about an open source phone platform, and Google's general trend (at that time) of doing cool stuff on open source, open services, open API's. Things turned out differently.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-...

> That was 2006...If that's your reference on Microsoft's standards support, it's not the full picture.

The new standard for high capacity SD Cards - SDXC - specifies a filesystem in the standard. That filesystem is exFAT, a proprietary, patent-encumbered filesystem from Microsoft.

Microsoft like to make out that they're an all new and open company, but they were a nasty company in the past, and they're a nasty company now.

I'm not clear on how this relates. Microsoft created and patented a filesystem that solved some problems for flash memory. The SD association decided to adopt it for high capacity SD cards. I haven't read anything alleging that Microsoft did something sinister to trick them into doing that - is there something I'm not aware of there?

I get that this is inconvenient for users on other platforms that don't or can't license it easily, the same way GIF and MP3 and similar file formats have been in the past. I don't know why the SDA picked a proprietary filesystem.

Regardless, that was something the SDA did, and they did it in 2009. How does it relate to talking about how Microsoft currently produces apps and publishes APIs for other platforms?

Oh please! You can't honestly believe that Microsoft didn't exert any pressure to get exFAT specified as the filesystem? There was no reason to specify a filesystem in the standard at all. SATA drives don't have a 'specified filesystem' now do they?

But even assuming that Microsoft had nothing to do with exFAT being adopted as the SDXC filesystem (yeah, right) it still relates as MS could have released the exFAT specification and they could have released the filesystem from licensing.

That would have been sign of them being a more open company, allowing integration with other OSs, but instead it just looks like since they failed to kill off OSS, they're now trying to own it. Same old Microsoft.

Once again, that standard is nearly 5 years old. Microsoft has definitely continued changing their approach to OSS software. I think my favorite move posed by Microsoft that supports this is their open-sourcing of .net and working with the Mono developers to bring a better experience to all platforms.

The effects of that standard are only just hitting us now. Have they dropped the requirements for a license for exFAT yet?

As for Open Sourcing .Net, what good has come of it as of today? It looks like a move to push their own environment more than anything else. But I'll tell you what: if in 2020 the decisions Microsoft are making today prove to be for the good, then I might start think better of them. At the moment, though, they've got a lot of past to make up for.

My friends at Google constantly bash my use of Azure, Visual Studio and .NET/C# for my backend work - which they believe are inferior products. If you've actually used these products you would know that there is nothing inferior about them. Also, Vine/Facebook/Instagram/etc. all have modern apps on Windows Phone and yet a company the size of Google couldn't even bother to update their search app on that platform? Really?

Sorry but its evident to me as an outsider that Google has a chip on their shoulder when it comes to Microsoft, whether it be intentional weaved into their culture or not.

> Google has a chip on their shoulder when it comes to Microsoft

Here's a good summary of the history behind this: http://www.windowscentral.com/google-problem-windows-phone

If only they could get Nokia to make phones with cyanogenmod pre-installed...

i would later change that and install google rom and use the beautiful microsoft hardware

I'm surprised it took this long for a big phone player to pick up Cyanogen, but disappointed it's MS - I mean, obviously they could have use for Cyanogen, but it will never be part of their core business. Lenovo should have thought of it first.

They aren't 'picking it up/buying it'. They're investing and according to the article will be a minority shareholder.

I think the new Microsoft is becoming really cool. Now there is one step more to do.

Windows, I would like to see something like the project Spartan, a Windows based on unix.

I'm a dreamer I know but at this point I will not be surprised.

I think that's their goal, is to be accepted again. Their late rash of investments seem to insinuate that.

Back in the 90's, it was cool to be a Microsoft fan. Not so much over the last decade. They're trying hard to change that.

Supporting BSD rump kernels compiled against the NT api could be a good alternative.

Why not just make a POSIX complaint Windows in the future?

Ironically, Windows NT was certified as POSIX compliant because at the time it was a requirement for systems used by the US government: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_POSIX_subsystem

Not only that, there was a buzzing community around it. I'm never quite sure whether geNToo was a joke, but if it was then I wanted to do it for real. But then MS killed the whole API.

For a brief shining moment, Microsoft sold an Android with a Nokia/Microsoft ecosystem behind it. It wasn't a bad idea. It could have sold better than Windows Phone handsets because it would have apps.

As Amazon knows, it's owning the ecosystem that matters.

Am I the only person who actually likes WP8 as a platform?

Seriously, my Lumia 520 is the best cheap phone I've ever bought.

No, you are not alone. I recently got a LG G3 with Lollipop. This is my first new Android phone in 2.5 years and I think it's going to be the last. It can't even compete performance wise with my older Lumia 920 in day to day tasks. Can't say the hardware is bad on the phone, but the software is underwhelming (typical Android laginess that makes it annoying to use)...

G3 has a high res screen and under powered GPU to run it.

I do remember reading something about this indeed!

My Nexus 4 runs like a champ with Lollipop and my hardware is inferior to yours. Lollipop has its issues(memory leak) but what you describe sounds like LG did a crappy job brining you lollipop

Not alone indeed. I've got a 635.

Battery life is stupendous compared to the Nexus 4 (even when it was brand new), or any iPhone prior to the 6 (which I lack first hand experience), even before the battery saver triggers. That's considering a pretty heavy usage (lost in a foreign country and using the GPS a lot) under the sun, so brightness to the max.

Cheap, the touchscreen is ok, gorilla glass, cell reception is good. Crappy camera without a front camera or flash though.

The bundled 'Here' apps are great and saved my bacon several times over due to the easy and accurate offline maps.

Removable battery, sim, the back is plastic so it survived several falls.

Basically, if you want a phone to (gasp!) make phone calls, which also has good navigation capabilities (specially offline) and to use 'mainstream' stuff such as whatsappp or facebook, then you don't really need much else.

Or if you want a backup phone that WILL have battery left when your iPhone dies. You can even carry spares, which is something you don't see often nowadays. If I ever go on a camping trip, that's the phone I'm taking.

I can't comment on the relative battery life, but it's pretty easy to pack up any phone/tablet for camping by getting an external battery pack with a USB outlet on it.

E.g. - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008TXFPS2/ref=oh_aui_detai...

Love my 928. Still runs as smoothly as the day I got it (1.5 years ago). Haven't had an android device that has competed performance-wise for the same duration. Having used the big three platforms for several years now (and still developing for all of them), Windows Phone is still my favorite, by far.

Nope. I always recommend Windows phones for my not-so-technical friends, especially for entry level prices, because they offer much better out of the box experience than stock Android IMHO. Of course, if friend in question had enough skills to install CM, that's another talk..

They're nice phones :) Though the lower cost ones are missing a few sensors that make app dev a little unpredictable. Correct if I'm wrong, but you cant use apps on the 520 that require a compass right?

My HTC 8X is getting pretty long in the tooth but I still like it. I'm still a fan of WP and trying to decide if my next phone will be the HTC M8 Windows variant or the Lumia 1520.

As a fellow owner of the 8X, it's still a pretty awesome smartphone. The antenna sometimes is a little glitchy on 4G, but it's still comparable for me to more modern phones.

I am really awaiting another well-designed Windows Phone device to upgrade to.

I like it and used it for a while, but ultimately its lack of certain killer apps like Puzzle and Dragons sent me back to iOS.

No you are not alone, I got a Lumia 630 as secondary phone and find the OS very good.

Love my 930 and just got a 1520.

That was the Nokia X series right? I'm afraid it had the rug pulled out from under it.

I think this is a smart investment but the handling of the Nokia brand has been pretty bad if you ask me.

Hopefully this means that CyanogenMod will get more bug fixes and resources so that it feels like a truly native Android experience. I didn't even know there were two different types of headphone microphone jacks (CTIA vs. OMTP) until I hit this fun limitation on my new OnePlus: https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/BACON-133

Coincidentally, Microsoft released the final versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint for Android tablets today: http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-office-apps-for-android-t...

Thanks! I wonder if it'll make me switch from OfficeSuite Pro, that 25p app I bought and have used twice.

Does anyone do much work on tablets, out of interest?

My wife uses Google Sheets for a spreadsheet or two on her iPad but we're under no illusion that it'll replace a "proper" office package on the Mac/PC.

EDIT: Just noticed it'll need a subscription, so I am not their target market. Thanks for the info about the release though, I did not know about that.

The one thing I've read (don't remember where) that makes sense to me is...is it possible that MS is trying to figure out a mobile Docker system to allow Android apps on Windows Phone? With multi-core CPU's on phones and more memory, you could assume the capability is there.

But this would be more than Windows Phone...with Windows 10 merging into one store and Universal apps allowed, is it possible MS is telling everyone to build for Windows 10 and you'll get tablet and phone apps for free?

I'm a Windows Phone user (Lumia 1020) and really frustrated by the lack of a new flagship phone, but my feeling is MS is just waiting to leapfrog everyone else's hardware in 6 months. A lofty goal, but seeing the Surface Pro 3's success, maybe, just maybe they can do it.

But embedding Android inside Windows seems plausible to me.

If Microsoft can stop themselves from another Sidekick episode, they might actually manage to make a phone for once. (Assuming they're trying for a phone) But having lived through the Ballmer years (WRT Linux/FOSS), I remain skeptical of any Microsoft participation in Android.

Did you know Microsoft sold over 50 million phones last quarter [1]? They know how to make phones...

[1] 10.5 million Lumia smartphones, 39.7 million Nokia-branded dumbphones -- http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/hardware-surprisingl...

So you really mean that Microsoft sold 10 million phones last quarter? Nokia knows how to make dumbphones, nothing new there. That those appear on MS's balance sheet does not imply anything about the capabilities of MS.

They don't just show up on Microsoft's balance sheet, the part of Nokia that makes them is now part of Microsoft.

No true Microsoft fallacy? Ha

This is a very minor investment, and won't give MS any sort of controlling stake. It's very likely that they want to use this to keep a better feel for the pulse of the direction the Android ecosystem is going in than any sort of power play or to adapt technologies.

If we won't see Microsoft apps and services start popping up in Cyanogen 6 months from now, then I'd agree with you, but I think that's exactly what's going to happen.

Microsoft may not get a "controlling stake", but it will probably have a huge influence in the development of Cyanogen from now on.

Microsoft already publishes heaps of android apps[1], but there's no way Cyanogen would drop Google apps (leaving ASOP) to pre-install a suite of unrelated, relatively useless apps (drop Maps, gain Office Suite?)

[1] :https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Co...

Bing Maps was very good the last time I used it.

And Nokia Here, presumably.

I think the whole Cyanogen thing is that they make these services optional. If this means Cortana can be an optional service in CM (and not to the exclusion of others), I see zero downside.

Why would they?

Microsoft just bought part of a linux company. Wow, things are not as I remember them.

“I don’t want to fight old battles, I want to fight new ones.” - Satya Nadella

see also: http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/emips/

Microsoft donated an entire architecture work to NetBSD...

They've done it before, with Novell. (And, arguably, Nook.)

Microsoft released a version of Unix when Linus Torvalds was 11 years old.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

Sure, but releasing a commercial Unix is different than investing in a Linux company. The former is less inconsistent with popular anti-Linux perception of Microsoft than the latter.

"The real challenge for the company will be convincing its hardcore Android user base to dump Google Play and use the Cyanogen app store."

Oh, so no Candy Crush Saga then? Well, that's OK. Better chance for everyone.

They "only" need to convince developers first. With Googles automatic banning from Play Store nowadays, that could even be doable.

This makes sense. I can see Microsoft offering Cyanogen and other OEM's a suite of Office apps as a way to sell more Office 365 subscriptions. It's really, really smart.

I wish they would take the money they're investing in this and figure out how to bring more apps to Windows Phone.

Why throw good money after bad? It's not like people are going to start suddenly using windows phone, that ship already sailed.

Just about the only complaint I hear from from WP users is that it doesn't have the apps they would like to use. If MS could prove that their phones had similar app support that Android and iPhones have many more people would be open to using them.

At this point people have been hearing "if WP just had more apps it would be a huge success!" for over three years. If that were true then why don't we see app developers porting apps to Windows Phone in anticipation of the great change?

Having owned and developed apps for the windows phone since 7, I almost think part of the problem is the tooling/languages available. As in, its too good.

The MS app store is flooded with so many cheap, quickly developed apps and knockoffs that finding anything good not simply produced by MS itself requires wading through stuff that's bad.

Could be I'm biased, refusing to buy anything I feel I could just make myself, but I can imagine as an app developer who actually tried to make money, developing for a platform where the margins are so low and the copying so easy probably doesn't provide much incentive.

I've heard people say the same about iOS and Android.

The iOS and Android stores are massively better. Every week, a new flood of fake HBO, Xfinity, etc. apps are launched. Microsoft offered up to $2000 to devs to pump apps. Many are just wrappers around random YouTube channels or whatnot. MS encourages this.

MS even approved for sale, a fake Windows 8.1 update. That's how poorly it's handled.

Here's some pics to show the crap: http://imgur.com/a/xvqZg#0

Fake Windows Update: http://imgur.com/FOC0jr5

Contacting MS is useless. In the case of the fake Dropbox app, the MS CSR said it worked fine and I should try reinstalling this. This is regarding an obvious fake/scam/phishing app.

Even legit publishers are finding it hard to get pirate copies of their apps removed. If you look at the top paid apps, some of them are media players, rebundling things like K-Like Codec Pack (at least in name). Pretty much any popular title will have plenty of fakes going around.

MS prioritizes one metric alone: number of apps published. The store is filled with useless shit and is an embarrassment. As a user, it makes the Store difficult to use. And even after you get through the outright scams, the overall quality is pretty terrible. Just poor UI, janky software.

It's a shame, because the MS dev tools are really fantastic, and the frameworks look great.

Totally agree. I can understand why the number of apps is what MS' marketing department focuses on (because most of the time when people compare stores, the number is the first thing discussed), but they need to take a stand and soon.

If Windows 10 has any significant uptake and given that its integrated search is the machine, the web AND the app store, I would think they would curate just to improve peoples search result quality, to try and avoid given the feature a negative image.

The technology world is full of traction/friction dilemmas and chicken/egg scenarios. There are entire businesses with billion dollar valuations based on user traction alone.

Chicken & egg problem. Being the first risks being the only one to move. Then you don't don't get the big push to profit from and you diverted resources away from your other projects (assuming that the kind of app developers needed for that would port their existing and actively maintained apps)

Appeal to developers, that's all. If your brand is not used by developers, nobody is going to start writing apps for your platform just out of the hobby. Plus, it takes time. Just look at iOS (2007) and Android (2008). You can't have an ecosystem by just snapping your fingers in the air.

Microsoft cannot promise developer incentives that actually scale. They have run several "hackathons" and "app contests" and things with eye-popping prize money, like $100k and whatnot.

But for most people, supporting an additional platform for any duration more than a year can quickly cost upwards of that amount. With the tiny marketshare today, and nothing but hope that it will ever grow - hope that has not come to fruition in 3-5 years - it will be a net loss very quickly and also have diverted resources from the other aspects of the developer's companies.

If they could perhaps offer scalable incentives, like "support and consulting services worth $2000 per month" or "we pay you $0.05 per download (even if your app is free)" or "we'll market your app alongside WP marketing" then perhaps. Perhaps it might be functional developer incentive.

Disclaimer/note: As a cofounder of a company built around an app that Microsoft tried to woo us to port. We toyed with their APIs for a bit, but it was going to be a support nightmare with our hardware and sensor requests and we decided against following through.

Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by blocking Qt from their platform, early on.

They had to block native code on WP7.x because they were on the CE kernel, knew they were going to move to the NT kernel in WP8, and native apps wouldn't have ported over.

Platform agnosticism is something that Qt exists to provide... Your point is taken that the Qt backend would need to be ported twice. For WP8+, I suppose that would involve a DX11 port of ANGLE for Qt5. Which seems to have been merged in, actually https://codereview.qt-project.org/#/c/52810/. What was WP7? DX9? Angle covers that, as well. So, I'm not sure why we're not seeing it, at least on WP8+ given that it does have native code support. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj6816...

Aren't we seeing it? I thought Qt does support WP8+: http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/winrt-support.html

I dunno, Microsoft seems to have a phenomenal developer attitude these days. The marketshare is just too small to bother, in my opinion.

It's not just MORE apps. It's keeping current apps updated as iOS/Android counterparts.

I believe they are already throwing a lot more money to bring more apps. The investment in Cyanogen would be very small compared to how much they throw into app developers and companies to bring more WP apps.

How would they do this? Pay developers to create apps for their own brands? They could make their own versions, but that's not going to sit well with .. anyone.

Curious how such a small investment would make a dent in the seeming lack of apps for the Windows Phone platform.

I remember when blackberry had a promotion to get a PlayBook for free if you submitted an app. I'm sure they got loads of apps, if only to get the free PlayBook to sell.

I know that's what I did.

Sounds like a good way to get a bunch of terrible, unsupported apps into your ecosystem. Not sure that would help things.

Yep, it got them tons of pong games and stuff like that.

FWIW, Microsoft was giving out a lot of free developer devices, too.

For a while, Microsoft was flat-out giving developers $100 for every app they published:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4124548/microsoft-paying-d...

They approach their partners and try to convince them with either cash, marketing, or other benefits to make apps for Windows Runtime and Windows Phone.

Source: They did it at my company

Maybe they will. Cross-platform Android/Windows Phone apps...

If they could solve the "race to 99 cents" problem, they'd get developers.

How should they solve this problem - market a tier of higher priced apps for SMB and enterprise, rather than consumers? There would need to be at least one wildly successful app, in functionality and sales at a higher price point, to convince developers to chase the dream.

I can't help but think that between this and the Android Visual Studio integration, we might see Android app compatibility on Windows Phone, much like the Blackberry app play a couple years ago.

It would certainly put the jumper cables on Windows Phone.

Adding a compatibility layer for a large competitor means:

A) users will get the cool OS updates as soon as possible, but after the guys running the 'real' thing get them.

Guess what choice users will make?

B) developers who develop for your platform have to support the market leader, too; developers who develop for the market leader get your users for free.

Guess what choice developers will make?

This tactic killed native OS/2 apps and, subsequently, OS/2. The Blackberry plot didn't end that well for Blackberry, either.

This is a good point. Few developers would care about Windows Phone if they can just build for Android and do a lazy port to WP (if they port at all). But what if Microsoft instead wants to make Windows apps work on Android? Microsoft is championing their "universal apps" now, where you build one Windows app and it runs on Windows 8/10, Windows Phone and soon Xbox One. Adding Android to that list would be big.

It seems to me at least as likely to have the "Win-OS/2 effect" of putting a bunch of apps (most of which feel really out of place and none of which feel great) on the platform while causing even fewer developers to target it natively because, hey, why not just invest all the extra effort a native version would take into the Android version since it "runs" on both platforms?

Edit: Which isn't necessarily to say that wouldn't be Microsoft's best option for Windows Phone right now. Especially since games and entertainment apps are such a big part of the app market and their "nativeness" tends to be less important.

That's what I think too. I see few other options for Microsoft to rescue WP. They should add Android app compatibility to Windows Phone and invite Android App developers to the Windows Store. And then hope for the hacker community to unofficially add the Play Store and/or unofficial ports of Android apps.

Maybe WP can regain some interest that way. Being close to Cyanogen makes a lot of sense in that scenario.

Having Android app compatibility isn't saving Blackberry and Microsoft would gain nothing from people installing Google's app store where Google control ads and apps.

If someone comes up with a version of Android with better privacy controls and a app store which has around same number of apps available. I will jump the ship. Google Apps are great but I am sure I can live without them.

So, can someone address the Nexus 4 no call audio issue? Because right now I can't make emergency calls.

It was resolved for me when I moved to CM12. Zero problems in 2+ weeks, previously a daily issue.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll have to consider it. That's definitely a workaround but I've had issues with instability on nightly builds in the past because... well... they're nightly builds. Could things be worse than having no phone functionality on my phone? Hmm....

May be instead of investing they could stop shaking down Android manufacturers with patent trolling? That would be way more useful.

Their goal is to help themselves, not to help the greater phone-using community.

Except they don't hesitate used crooked means for their goal.

This is classic embrace, extend, and extinguish.

This article title is incorrect. The correction at the bottom of the article reads:

  Correction: This post originally said Microsoft would be investing $70 million in Cyanogen, but the company will be taking part in a $70 million investment round. It's unknown how much Microsoft is investing.

Thanks, we updated the title.

Thanks!

Android is heading in the wrong direction. Not much open source left in a couple of years. Too bad!

Because of Microsoft's investment? Microsoft has been open sourcing things in a pretty shocking manner (.net), supporting open source projects (embracing Node.js), and doing things in line with the open source community (repos on Github)

It was always heading in the wrong direction. Something like proper glibc Linux with Wayland is more interesting.

It's 2015 Google is the new Microsoft

While I don't disagree with you, Google is far more benevolent. They'll either stuff your pockets with cash or graciously stamp you underfoot like you weren't even there.

That's not true. If you make your case for it, I'll gladly explain where you're wrong. But FFS, stop spewing bullshit.

Android: Doesn't have the dominance that Windows has had for two decades, thus limiting the power of Google. Also, there is much less lockin for phones.

Android.

Google builds an AOSP environment, as soon as everyone uses it, they move all the libraries into the proprietary Google Services Framework, and then they appended their contracts so that every manufacturer that produces "Android with Google Play" devices can’t sell pure AOSP devices anymore.

No libraries have ever moved from AOSP into Google Services Framework. The Google Services library is exclusively made of APIs that use Google services that were never in AOSP, such as a Map viewer, push messaging, advanced location services, and games services.

The vast, VAST majority of APIs that developers use and depend on are in AOSP either as framework APIs or in the support libraries (which are open source in AOSP as well).

Second the contracts were always there. Hell, the contracts (Open Handset Alliance) came before AOSP.

Based on recent developments with both Google and MS in the past few years, I treat them with the same amount of trepidation.

All those tears, from hipster boys pronouncing Microsoft dead, will be delicious!

"Microsoft has no marketshare", "Microsoft just doesn't get it", "Microsoft lost the war", "Microsoft is dead".

Microsoft still has about 90% desktop market share. In the Office document market, they're even stronger. Microsoft simply came a little late to improving their mobile product, which left the door open for Google, thus missing out in an important new market. Their revenues have constantly increased over the last decade. They have close to $100 billion in cash reserves.

http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials...

Microsoft is still an incredibly powerful company.

Yep, and I still use my desktop once every day (or couple days at the very least)..

Meanwhile I'm using my cell phone dozens times a day and a tablet at least 3-4 times a day.

Man this must be terrifying for Microsoft. To have a dominant position on a form factor that is quickly becoming irrelevant.

Yeah, PCs are on the way out. Any day now. I suppose it will be the same year as Linux for end users.

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yesterday, all sites reported it as Cyanogen wanting to take Android away from Google "to make it more open", as in Google has too much control over it.

And today we learn that it's actually Microsoft pulling the strings and "taking Android away from Google". That changes things quite a bit.

Microsoft will only keep it "open" as long as it benefits them (yes, kind of Google - which is precisely why I don't see any benefit in this for the user, just the major downside that will come with such a fork - Fragmentation).