Paranoid Android is back with a big new release

After a long hiatus, the Paranoid Android custom ROM project is back.

One of the most popular custom ROM projects of the last few years, Paranoid Android lost many of its core developers to OnePlus in February 2015. OnePlus recruited them to develop its in-house Oxygen OS, following its breakup with Cyanogen. Predictably, PA releases slowed to a crawl, with the last major release, based on Android 5.1, coming out in July. In October, project member Matt Flaming admitted what pretty much everyone had been suspecting for a while – the Paranoid Android project was on hold.

Now the Paranoid Android project is back into the spotlight, with over a dozen new team members and a new feature-packed release that’s been nine months in the making.

Features coming in this release, some of them familiar and some new, include an improved floating window mode, immersive mode, on-the-spot controls for the behavior of the notification dropdown, a polished quick settings re-order mechanism, battery style, an advanced power dialog, support for Paranoid OTA updates, a theme engine, and support for layers. For certain devices, including OnePlus and Oppo phones, the release offers advanced features like an enhanced kernel, advanced gesture control, and support for the alert slider and fingerprints scanner.

The team noted that it wanted to put out a release that is as good as possible from day one, moving away from the traditional alpha builds.

A big focus of the new release is UI design, with things like system icons, interaction models, illustrations, and even wallpapers being designed in-house or by established names from the industry. One example is the default wallpaper of the release, which was created by Hampus Olsson, the artist responsible for the stock OnePlus 2 and OnePlus X wallpapers.

The new Paranoid Android will be officially supported on the following devices:

• Nexus 6P
• Nexus 5X
• Nexus 6
• Nexus 5
• Nexus 4
• Nexus 7 2013
• Nexus 9
• OnePlus One
• OnePlus 2
• OnePlus X
• Some Sony devices

A full system wipe is recommended before flashing the new ROM. Other devices may be supported under the legacy program.

We’ll bring you a closer look at the new features in the new Paranoid Android release over the next day. In the meantime, tell us your thoughts about Paranoid Android returning to the custom ROM scene and this big new release! You can find more info here and download it for yourself on supported devices by clicking here.