MWC 2015: Cyanogen teams up with Qualcomm Snapdragon to improve Android fork experience

Cyanogen has announced a partnership with chipmaker Qualcomm that will see the popular Android open source operating system CyanogenMod on far more devices than ever before.

Cyanogen will be working with Qualcomm to develop software and user interface features for devices running Snapdragon 200, 400 and 600 processors, which are used in low to mid-range phones.

CyanogenMod is a popular Android fork maker that has long been one of the biggest providers of custom ROMs in the world.

Custom ROMS are versions of the Google Android mobile operating system that have been customised to either make Android tablets and smartphones run faster, or to make their interfaces look more attractive.

Cyanogen started out as a forum for enthusiasts of Android modding to tweak and play with Android code, but the work they did ended up making the operating system better, and interest in rooting Android devices has grown exponentially among users that are not developers.

Today, apart from the community build, Cyanogen offers a commercial build of CyanogenMod that runs on the OnePlusOne and the Micromax Yu Yureka smartphone.

Forking an Android device may be fun, but sometimes users encounter problems, as installing a custom ROM erases or overwrites old Android system files.

Cyanogen working with Qualcomm is potentially good news for Cyanogen fans as it means that future ROM updates could be more stable and faster as they work better with Snapdragon processors.

This also means that consumers that have no interest in buying an expensive smartphone will be able to experience a better phone experience.

Cyanogen has also announced that it has rebranded itself and launched a new website.

The firm wants to continue to keep CyanogenMod open, whereby its community of millions of users can continue to help decide how the operating system develops.