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CyanogenMod crew split if they should bother developing custom ROMs for the Samsung Galaxy S 4

posted by Daniel P. / Mar 20, 2013, 4:19 AM

CyanogenMod crew split if they should bother developing custom ROMs for the Samsung Galaxy S 4

Now this is not a pretty development, pun intended. The group that delivered to you the famed CyanogenMod ROMs for the Samsung Galaxy line before, is apparently not planning to put as much effort into the Galaxy S 4. This is their reasoning:

Nobody at Team Hacksung (the team behind Galaxy S2, Note, S3, Note2, G Tabs… official CM ports) plans to buy it, neither develop for it. There are two variants which will be a pain to maintain, [and] the bugs we have on the S3 will probably be there on S4, too (camera), and we all know Samsung ability to release sources while staying in line with mainline. Yes Qualcomm releases sources, but Exynos sources we had were far from [working on] actual Galaxy products. I’m pretty sure the same will happen for this one.

That’s a uniform “no” from us.

The CyanogenMod crew, however, was quick to issue a rebuttal that says it's premature to judge whether or not the S 4 will be good for hacking and modding:

Setting Device Expectations

Let’s start with the simplest form of this: CyanogenMod does not pre-announce support or lack of support for devices. Ever. Even for the Nexus 4, we did not announce support until a nightly build was available. Further, any announcement regarding the ‘dropping’ of device support will be communicated via this Google+ page, Twitter, Facebook, our blog, or a combination of those; it will not be something buried in a forum post.

This morning, a comment from a CM collaborator on XDA was taken to be as an ‘absolute’ in regards to support of the S4. He offered the opinion of four TeamHacksung maintainers, their frustrations and lack of interest in supporting the S4. What’s seemingly lost on those reading this is that his comments as an individual do not speak for CyanogenMod as an organization.

As for the team’s stance on the S4, there isn’t one at this time, and most definitely won’t be one before the device is sold at retail.

- The CyanogenMod Team

Given that one of the many attractions of buying a Samsung flagship has so far been developer and custom ROM support that squeeze every last mile out of the hardware, and iron out the software kinks faster than Samsung does, an eventual developer reluctance is not good news for future S 4 owners that like to tweak. Most buyers aren't hacking and modding, though, so this might not be a dealbreaker for them. What do you think?

source: CM (G+) via MobileSyrup

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41 Comments

1. Ohrules

Posts: 327; Member since: Jun 11, 2012

a dark day for the king of the galaxy

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:25 AM 17

8. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

Did you read the article? They just announced that they are NOT shutting the S4 out.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:35 AM 9

15. Ohrules

Posts: 327; Member since: Jun 11, 2012

yet hesitation to support a top dog? seems unprecedented

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 5:25 AM 7

16. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

So you didn't read the article. "Let’s start with the simplest form of this: CyanogenMod does not pre-announce support or lack of support for devices. EVER" Hello? Do you understand that sentence?

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 6:03 AM 10

19. jopancy

Posts: 78; Member since: Apr 25, 2012

Seems like you read the first few sentences then jumped to make your comment. Go back and read the article again ok? And stop making a ass of yourself.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 6:17 AM 6

39. zhiae unregistered

i really dont like cm built s the only rom i used for gs3 was ultima i liked it

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 3:49 PM 1

17. atsamman

Posts: 74; Member since: Sep 26, 2012

Not necessarily a dark day I personally dont prefer the CM roms I Think samsung roms has much more usefull features that I dont like to give up by using CM such as pop-up play and mini apps My only concern would if it's gonna get root or not

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 6:10 AM 7

27. SleepingOz unregistered

Yeah, that's the main reason why many senior members on XDA are sticking to the official firmwares. Even I, who was a big fan of CM an AOSP, is using a custom rom based on the official firmware from Samsung. The latter have been doing a marvellous job with their softwares lately.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 9:25 AM 2

34. McLTE

Posts: 922; Member since: Oct 18, 2011

I agree. I have not run CM for a long time in any of my phones. Don't care for the ROMs. Having said that.. I know they are the workhorse behind mose of the non-TW based ROMs. I rooted/unlocked my Note2 and after playing with a few ASOP ROMS, I went to Touch Wiz based ROMS and don't plan on going back. There are too many great features that Sammy cooked into TW that I don't want to throw away - Spen support being a big one. Wow.. I can't believe I just said I don't want to run stock(ish) Android.. I have ALWAYS been a big supporter of stock. Sammy is doing a good job with SW!!

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 11:33 AM 2

35. asingha94

Posts: 295; Member since: Apr 08, 2012

Samsuck loosers haha!!its nt only king its a hype king!

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 11:36 AM 3

2. wendygarett unregistered

I don't understand the hype of exynos, it has 4g lte built-in, yet only Korean carrier support it, the rest support Qualcomm... not to mention, exynos exploited twice, people start to question the ability of exynos...

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:27 AM 13

5. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/03/20/e9a8u2yz.jpg How about now?

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:29 AM 5

10. tiara6918

Posts: 2263; Member since: Apr 26, 2012

I'm sorry if my comment is a bit unrelated but I don't understand how octa core works(why did samsung highlight green the other four cores?)-http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151531492826488&set=a.10151462574381488.535947.314882591487&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:47 AM 0

12. tiara6918

Posts: 2263; Member since: Apr 26, 2012

or scroll down up to the date march 16 if this link doesn't work-https://www.facebook.com/SamsungTomorrow

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:55 AM 0

13. thelegend6657 unregistered

Exxynos sucks ! My to omap version of the GS2 although slower in benchmarks is actually smoother !

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 5:08 AM 3

30. SleepingOz unregistered

I'd really like to see that with my own eyes! My brother who studies had the i9100g and I had the original i9100. I remember he was always complaining about how sluggish his phone was compared to mine.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 9:40 AM 1

33. thelegend6657 unregistered

On cyanogenmod 10 ! No exynos code available so the G is smoother

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 11:25 AM 2

28. KingKurogiii

Posts: 5713; Member since: Oct 23, 2011

the way Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa works is you have 4 low powered Cortex A7 Cores to do menial tasks like scrolling through home pages and whatnot and then you have the high powered big boys in the form of quad Cortex A15 Cores which take over for more intensive tasks. they'll never all run at once and the point of this is mainly to save battery power.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 9:32 AM 3

31. SleepingOz unregistered

Correct, this is how the big.LITTLE works but(yeah there's a but) all 8 cores can be used simultaneously by the system. It's called the big.LITTLE MP. So basically, the Exynos 5 Octa is really an octo-core processor. Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) This is the other actual implemented function mode of a big.LITTLE CPU. In this case, all 8 cores can be used simultaneously by the system. This is a vastly more complex working mechanism, and its implementation is also an order of magnitude more sophisticated. It requires the kernel scheduler to actually be aware of the differentiation of between the A7 and A15 cores. Currently, the Linux kernel is not capable of doing this and treats all CPUs as equals. This is a problem since we do not want to use the A15 cores when a task can simply me processed on an A7 core with a much lower power cost. The Linaro working-group already finished the first implementation of the HMP design as a series of patches to be applied against the Linux 3.8 kernel. What they did is to make the scheduler smart enough to be able to track the load of single process entities, and with that information to schedule the threads smartly on either the A7 cores or the A15 cores. This achieves much lower latency in terms of switching workloads, or better said, switching the environments (CPUs) to the respective work-loads, and exposes the full processing capabilities of the silicon as all cores can be used at once. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2191850

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 9:48 AM 1

3. _Bone_

Posts: 2155; Member since: Oct 29, 2012

And there you have it. The community won't abandon the most popular phone of the year, however I see problems cause of the insane number of new technologies introduced. Can you imagine the side IR sensor, front IR sensor (for gesture recognition), thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, Floating Touch and all the stuff packed into having to get to work with every release?

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:27 AM 2

36. McLTE

Posts: 922; Member since: Oct 18, 2011

All the better reason to stick with Touch Wiz based ROMs. Why not? It's a GOOD overlay. Having been someone who has ALWAYS gone after stock Android, I'm surprised to find myself very much enjoying TW. There are a few dumb things, but over all it's great. I want an IR blaster! :P

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 11:36 AM 1

4. ianbbaa

Posts: 332; Member since: Mar 20, 2013

I used CM and big big thanks to them to make some of my older devices to run super smooth.... Feauture wyse S4 amazed me, and i believe they would not be able to bring up all of those features to run (if it is SAMSUNGs fault for not releasing sources of EXYNOS or what ever...) It is good they decided not to go, a lot of new hardware in S4, lot of bugs and work for them...I believe with the hardware specs of S4, there will be no need for CM anymore, just root, remove some small amount bloatware and keep the phone full functional with original S4 firmware - i do not want S4 that can not do MHL, WiFi direct, NFC...as some of the CM roms were not able to do.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:28 AM 4

18. atsamman

Posts: 74; Member since: Sep 26, 2012

Exactly my thought

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 6:13 AM 0

6. jove39

Posts: 2146; Member since: Oct 18, 2011

Samsung should listen to devs and release latest/bug-free kernel sources for galaxy devices.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:29 AM 1

7. SGSatlantis

Posts: 227; Member since: Jul 20, 2011

I guess Samsung will send them free phones and they will support at least the Qualcomm version. And the first post wasn't a official statement in the first place.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:30 AM 3

9. joesseth

Posts: 61; Member since: Dec 18, 2012

Buy beer for the developers. Enough said.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:39 AM 1

11. pwnarena

Posts: 1129; Member since: Feb 15, 2013

or pay/sponsor them the way many "review websites" are getting paid/sponsored.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 4:55 AM 0

14. darac

Posts: 2156; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

This is not a loss at all. Cyanogen is popular, but mostly because of the legacy of being the first third party ROM. Now it's far from the best out there. For Samsung, there's always the Omega ROM ;)

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 5:15 AM 3

22. darac

Posts: 2156; Member since: Oct 17, 2011

I dare those who thumbed me down to support their case. Or are you just haters? CM is having stability and feature support issues. Omega simply trumps it!

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 6:31 AM 3

32. SleepingOz unregistered

Yeah but Omega is based on Samsung firmwares while CM is based on AOSP. Many people prefer the AOSP for the holo interface even if it lacks tons of feature available only on Samsung firmwares. I do care about the holo interface myself, that's the main reason I'm using Remix Resurrection Pitch Black but Westcrip has abandoned this Rom. I'm considering Omega with Simplistic Framework.

posted on Mar 20, 2013, 9:59 AM 1

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