Cyanogen has a new look, and a new business collaborator in Qualcomm

In a huge win for Cyanogen, they have teamed up with Qualcomm to deliver the next generation of Qualcomm’s Reference Devices.

This news comes out of Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona this week, and is only one of the many announcements expected to land during what is possibly the biggest news week of the year for mobile technology.

In addition to this new partnership, Cyanogen has again re-invented themselves in the graphics department. Their new identity brings at least new logo, with more to come soon.

The partnership with Qualcomm means that future Snapdragon powered Qualcomm Reference Devices, or QRDs, will ship to manufacturers running Cyanogen’s operating system. This deal covers the Snapdragon 200, 400 and 600 series QRDs, which allow manufacturers to quickly develop their own hardware, or just place their own branding on the QRD, and ship to consumer.

Previous QRDs shipped with a rather bare bones version of AOSP stream Android, with just the necessary software enhancements to support the installed hardware. Cyanogen OS will change this up a little, providing a user experience that many in the Android community deem to be among the best, indeed, one of the more popular phones of 2014, the OnePlus One, shipped with a version of Android built by Cyanogen.

This is a partnership that we will be keeping a close eye on, we are always eager to see what the next round of Snapdragon SoCs look like, and interested to see what Cyanogen will bring to the table.

What do you think is the best aspect to this partnership between Cyanogen and Qualcomm?

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Cyanogen and Qualcomm Collaborate to Raise the Bar on User Experience

Cyanogen, Powers New Offering for Snapdragon Processors

Palo Alto, CA. — March 1, 2014 — At Mobile World Congress today, Cyanogen Inc. and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, announced details of a collaboration that will provide support for the best features and UI enhancements of the Cyanogen Operating System on certain Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors. This will be available for the upcoming release of Qualcomm Reference Design (QRD) planned for April.

Cyanogen is widely known through the industry for its commercially distributed Cyanogen OS and the CyanogenMod community distribution. Through the enhanced solution, Cyanogen brings a number of feature-rich enhancements, including a new launcher and personal information management apps across dialer, messaging, contacts, and calendar. The Cyanogen OS experience arrives on the most current Android™ 5.0 Lollipop release, and will be available to device makers globally.

“We’re delighted to collaborate with Qualcomm on their QRD program,” said Kirt McMaster, CEO, Cyanogen Inc. “We’re addressing the needs of device makers in developed and developing markets looking for a truly differentiated software experience that matter to consumers.”

The features and UI enhancements will be available from Cyanogen Inc. for Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ processors in the 200, 400 and 600 series, bringing the Cyanogen experience across multiple device tiers. Additionally, Cyanogen features such as the new Launcher will also be available for the QRD program across these tiers of Snapdragon processors. The QRD program is designed to streamline the rapid introduction of devices at lower development costs — drawing on the technical innovation and product quality that have made Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. an industry leader.

“We chose to work with Cyanogen based on their deep Android expertise and innovative approach to enhancing smartphone software,” said Jason Bremner, SVP of Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies . “By collaborating with Cyanogen, we are able to offer unique experiences to users of Snapdragon based devices.”

Through this ongoing collaboration, Cyanogen will be adding exciting new features and services in future releases as the company continues to drive advancements in mobile computing across a range of devices that incorporate Snapdragon processors.

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