06 July 2012, 11:57

CyanogenMod reveals Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" plans

The developers at the CyanogenMod project have outlined their plans for the next major release of their popular modified Android firmware, CyanogenMod 10 (CM10). In a post on Google+, they say that CM10 – which will be based on the source code for Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" – should take far less time to develop than CyanogenMod 9 (CM), which still isn't finished, and that a majority CM9-compatible devices will be supported.

Version 9 of the open source custom ROM, currently only available as a release candidate, has taken the developers longer than the project's previous releases. This is because the team decided that "it would be best and most efficient to essentially rewrite CM enhancements from scratch" because of the big changes between Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" (CM7) and 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (CM9). "This added a bit of time to our development cycle, but the initial investment in cleaning our codebase has paid off, and CM9 is better for it," added the developers.

The team says that it is looking forward to Google's "Project Butter" performance enhancements, noting that the optimisations "should not be a huge pain to merge". However, the developers point out that, as they do not have access to the source for Android 4.1 yet, they can't provide a detailed analysis, but they anticipate having to refactor the "Trebuchet [CyanogenMod's Launcher] and the LockScreen enhancements, along with the Theme Engine". As is usually the case with CyanogenMod, the developers point out that CM10 will be released "When it's ready".

In a recent presentation video from an Android User Group Meetup, CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik and other developers provide insight into how the community-built custom ROMs fit into the Android landscape and the project's goals:

Steve Kondik and CyanogenMod team members discuss the project and its goals.