Submitted by Google has asked the CyanogenMod team to remove their installer application from the Google Play Store. All the application did was help users enable ADB on their Android device, so that the desktop side of the installer could take over and load the CM ROM onto the device.
After reaching out to the Play team, their feedback was that though application itself is harmless, and not actually in violation of their Terms of Service, since it ‘encourages users to void their warranty’, it would not be allowed to remain in the store.
While Google does have somewhat of a point – somewhat, somewhere, hidden deep inside – this is just entirely needless. I’m probably overly paranoid, but what are the chances that Samsung Google’s OEM partners applied some pressure? CM is insanely popular, and once you have a taste of proper, crapware, TouchWiz-less Android, you don’t want to go back.
But, not all that great, really.
I’ve run CM7, CM9. CM10.0, and CM10.1 at various times on 3 different phones (LG Eve, Sony Xperia Pro, LG Optimus G) and I found myself removing it within a week. I really tried to like it, but there was always a feeling of “not quite finished” to it.
Compared to RootBox, Carbon, and even AOKP, CM is just … blah. There’s no … pizazz, no … pop, no … polish, no … anything to it really. It’s very barebones and blah to use. Barely one step up from a pure AOSP ROM.
CM is a great stepping stone to alternative ROMs, though. And a great first step for those wanting to move away from stock ROMs. But once you try any other ROM, you’ll never want to use CM again. And you’ll wonder why you used it for so long …
RootBox is to CM as CM is to a carrier stock ROM.
Just because something is “insanely popular”, doesn’t mean it’s actually any good. After all, just look at Windows.
Edited 2013-11-27 23:47 UTC
Crap or not, this is still a case of, as microsoft so elegantly put it, being scroogled. Banning the Cyanogenmod installer is just demonstrating that Android, at it’s heart, is no longer an open-source friendly platform.
Not really.
All the Android app did was enable ADB debugging. It’s the Windows app that did all the magic of actually configuring the bootloader, recovery, and install CM.
All they need to do is change the Windows app to display a “how to enable adb debugging” on the phone and carry on.
There’s really no need for a separate Android app for that.
I agree. This isn’t a problem. People who load custom ROMs on their phones are not complete noobs. I think such folks can figure out how to enable ADB debugging themselves. If not, CM can simply put the APK file on their website for download. It takes only a second to email such a file to oneself where it can be opened directly on the phone. Viola. Meanwhile, I think Google has a valid point is removing an application from its store that actively encourages users to void their phone’s warranty. Viruses are not the only threat to software – users can be their own worst enemy in that regard.
Edited 2013-11-28 00:37 UTC
I wonder if that piece of software displayed a clear warning to the user that this will happen and give them a chance to back out? If so, Google has no point.
Nonsense. This is a storm in a teacup. Does MS allows apps in their store that encourages users to void their warranty? I’d wager a no.
[q]Android, at it’s heart, is no longer an open-source friendly platform.[./q]
The Play store was never open source.
But you see, that’s the beauty of it. If it’s a product you like then quantity equals quality, if it’s a product you don’t like then it doesn’t. Like how, for examply, Windows user numbers does not mean it’s better than Linux but the fact that Linux has more users than BSD clearly means it’s better than BSD.
That’s the idea, that’s all I want on my devices – pure unaltered Android. I don’t want to replace Samsung’s crap with someone else’s.
Then go buy the Nexus 5 (or the Nexus 7).
The Nexus 5 has 32GB of RAM, 1080p screen, slimport and everything.
Getting a Samsung Galaxy S series phone made sense back during the days of the Galaxy Nexus, which was more developer hardware than consumer device (1800mah battery in a phone with AMOLED screen, lol), it probably made sense during the days of the Nexus 4 if you wanted more than 16GB of storage, but nowadays, if you want pure Android, you can buy pure Android with very few missing things.
Edited 2013-11-28 13:15 UTC
Maybe if you’re talking about phones. I have a Nook HD+ and thanks to CM I don’t have to deal with the crappy stock OS anymore. Nook’s hardware is not only cheap, it’s also quite unique: 8.9 inches, 15:10 aspect ratio, micro-SD slot card.
I’m more than glad than CM is around and that it stays quite close to pure Android.
Except that pure AOSP isn’t that great to use. It’s missing a lot of nice, simple features that don’t add “bloat”. Like a proper shutdown menu, screenshot on the power menu, flashlight on the lockscreen, dark theme (hell, any themes), icon pack support in the launcher, ability to control the software buttons, CPU governors, I/O schedulers, etc. And it really lacks in the UI polish area and battery life.
A custom ROM doesn’t have to be bloated and ugly like a carriere/vendor ROM. But it doesn’t have to be barebones and almost-useless like pure AOSP.
I dare you to compare RootBox or Carbon on your device, with CM or AOSP. I can almost guarantee you’ll like RB/C more.
You do know that Windows is both popular and good for a reason? You know, for people who want an OS that just works….
Anyways, nice trying at trolling.
Better luck next time!
Windows is popular because most applications are compiled to run on Windows. It’s a “lock-in” situation where it is the only operating system most people have heard of. When i show people my Linux installation, they think there is something called “Microsoft Windows Linux”. They don’t know the concept of operating systems. Windows was pushed in people’s faces and Linux was not. It’s very unlikely that you will go to a store, buy an application and the sales person tells you this needs Linux.
Same thing with internet browsers. People never heard of Firefox or knew that there is more than one program to browse the internet. Mozilla never pushed Firefox in their faces. Google, on the other hand, pushes Google chrome in people’s faces and so may run Google chrome.
Windows has no fragmentation. Everything you need to develop a full Windows application can be provided by Microsoft. Under Linux, you have more than one choice and those choices are often competing with each other. They are also developed by different companies or groups. This makes it less attractive to publish commercial desktop applications for Linux.
Had Linux been pushed into people’s faces, the fragmentation with decrease. We will have every possible library installed on every Linux box. But then you cannot push an operating system into people’s faces with fragmentation. Hence, we are stuck in a stagnant situation.
Some companies like Opera worked around this in the past by making their applications use plugins to mimic different graphic toolkit appearances. LibreOffice does the same.
Rootbox looks very interesting. I had not run into it before. I have been keeping track of android as I am considering it over an iPhone for my next upgrade. iOS7 has not been that great on my phone and I prefer Google’s navigation.
You should try the Area51 ROMs, I’ve been running them on mine and my family’s phones and have to say its pretty sweet. They have good tools integrated like app2sd and Android Assistant and seem to be faster than stock ROMs, they even have OCed kernels you can choose to use on some models. I know that I was getting out of space messages constantly on my phone but after switching I went from 94% usage to less than 6%, a pretty big jump.
Anyway here is the link, sorry that its not clickable as I’m not an HTML guy.
http://androidarea51.com/index.php?action=forum
I’ve been in the market for a new phone. My contract on my 4S has expired. I have been looking hard at Android phones. But, news such as this and the way they are tying Youtube to a Google+ account is making me uncomfortable.
I don’t mind allowing a little access to Google here and there. But, there’s something about them tying it all together that makes me uncomfortable.
I get that they are an advertising company and provide a lot of services in exchange for some loss of privacy. But, they are connecting too many dots.
I’m really starting to feel the need to separate myself from Google more and more. I really hope this Jolla phone comes to Verizon in the U.S. And, I really hope it doesn’t suck. If it does the basics well, I’m interested.
I decided to stop using all google services and delete my accounts the 4th of november, i do not miss any of it now after about 20 days. (And i did not replace many of the services with anything at all as it was mostly fluff and very little substance.) Given that i do not own an android or even a cellphone at all for that matter. I have come to value my privacy higher today than ever before for some reason.
I do understand Google’s point: they don’t want users to void there warranty accidentally. I am talking about users that don’t know anything about android except that is the OS running on there phone.
On the other side CyanogenMod should be encouraged by Google because they gave a close to pure android system to users who don’t like TouchWiz or Sense.
It also gave google a weapon to use against OEM customizations: look, users don’t care about your interface, otherwise they would not install CyanogenMod.
You give Google a lot of credit. Google wants you to use Google Android not CyanogenMod Android. Google is not the benevolent giver of free software but a corporation that wants to sell ads everywhere.
Users don’t care about CM. Compared to the number of Android phones sold the number of CM users is very, very small.
Hey, it’s nice that it exist but it’s not something the average buyer gives a hoot about.
There are other “side effects” to installing CM or any other third-party ROM other than voiding the warranty on one’s phone. Some of a phone’s very important basic functionality may be missing or not work at all. I put CM 10.2 on my AT&T GS3 SGH I747, and while I really enjoy not having Samsung’s bloat/crap-ware, I have no LTE functionality. The phone will not access AT&T’s LTE network, and evidently the only way to bring that back is to put the stock ROM back on the phone. You can’t change any setting anywhere to make the thing access LTE. Nowhere in CM’s documentation does it warn you about that little missing feature. So I can see why Google is doing this, they don’t want customers to be surprised and find that a major part of their phone no longer works.
Edited 2013-11-28 12:33 UTC
There’s no current “stable” version of CM 10.2 for the AT&T GS3. There is a release candidate as of a week ago, for which the warning is “Last builds before stable release, few minor issues, mostly stable and safe for daily use” (emphasis added). Prior to that there was only Nightly and Milestone releases and they’re both basically “Hey if it works for you, great!”.
I have no idea if LTE works on the AT&T GS3 CM 10.1 stable builds or not – I’m in AU (so no AT&T model) and don’t have a 4G capable GS3 available to test.
Also – given radio/smartphone interaction is goverened by very proprietary interfaces and libraries – this doesn’t really surprise me. There’s a host of regulatory and industry limitations around this area that we’d all be better off for them going away.
Google concedes the app itself is harmless and doesn’t violate the TOS, yet they’re giving it the boot anyway. So basically Google’s TOS is worthless and care so much whether or not people void their warranty that they’re willing to try to police it.
Ok, that may be exaggerating a little but if someone wants to do something that voids their warranty, it’s their phone and that’s their choice. I doubt anyone is going to appreciate Google trying to interfere.
As earlier said – storm in a teacup.
Let Google have their way, it’s no big deal. They have their reasons and that’s fine. They really can do alot worse than this by fully locking down everything and breaking everything constantly (like Apl&MS).
I use CM on my Nexus4. It has those extra bits that make the difference over stock. Yes sure it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles but it works and works well on supported devices (mine). GPS works, camera works etc etc. People like stuff that works you know?
I liken CM a little to Ubuntu. Not the best and may not be for the hard core enthusiasts but it’s flying the flag for an alternative right! Hopefully if more people use and like CM they might become standard features that everyone enjoys on stock Android.
I used this tool to install CyanogenMod on my Nexus 4. The official update from Google to 4.3 took out most Bluetooth keyboards. I like using my phone and tablet as mini-laptops. The number of times I need a “real” laptop has diminished rapidly. It was nice to have the keyboard working again.
If an app enabling ADB is enough to “encourage voiding the warranty”, what about the hundreds of root apps that have the potential to brick your phone directly?