One Plus: Mods for the People
The flagship phone from independent phone maker, One Plus is the first device maker to launch exclusively with CyanogenMod. How a win for the open-source community disrupts the Telecom model.
It’d be interesting to put the Google development team in a room to discuss CryogenMod. Would they balk at the revamped design elements from their stock Android OS? Its user experience and speed? Or would they embrace the mod, underscoring the bootstrap attitude in every developer’s DNA?
Without Google, there would be no CryogenMod. The T-Mobile G-1, launched in 2008, was the first phone with a commercially released Linux OS, allowing developers ‘root access’—the ability to modify core command lines to change the phone’s OS. A small group of developers began writing and packaging these code ‘modifications’ for users to wipe and “root” their phones with ease.
For the first time people didn’t just own their device, they owned their entire experience on the device. Previously, Android phones were purchased on contract from Telcos like Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, along with device manufacturers like Samsung and HTC had dictating what a users’ smartphone experience would be. Dubbed “bloatware,” pre-installed OEM skins and memory sucking apps—paid for by 3rd party companies and weren’t removable from users phones we’re beyond annoynce. Compounded with Telcos’ refusal to offer further Android updates to older phones, the smartphone experience became expensive and unfair. Modifying one’s Android Smartphone would offer a cleaner experience, customizability, and lengthen the lifespan of phones since they no longer relied on updates from Telcos.
Iterations of the mod software continued as new versions of Android were released, with developer/enthusiast Steve Kondik creating CyanogenMod—a highly polished and distributed Android modification. In 2013, investors took notice, Steve getting $23M in venture funding for his project turned company. This funding gave CyangenMod—and the open-source community—a legitimate platform that was ready to court device manufacturers.
Software is eating the world, Android is eating mobile, and we think Cyanogen only just finished their appetizer and is moving onto the entree.
-Peter Levine, Andreeson Horowitz
Enter OnePlus. A subsidiary of Chinese Oppo Electronics ran by Pete Lau, its stated ambition to is “smash the past” with it’s flagship OnePlus One device. Whether or not they’ll actually do it remains to be seen. But with its high-grade guts like a Snapdragon processor, large screen and nice camera, they’re heading in the right direction. The phone sells exclusively off-contract for $299.00—a bit more than the average $199.00 price point for American contract phones with 2 years of commitment.
Beyond the gadgetry, OnePlus presents an interesting new standard: users now ‘own’ their devices and the experiences within them. In conjunction with the economies of scale making devices cheaper, scrappy players like T-Mobile investing in disruptive non-contract programs, consumers expect Telcos to cater to them; the standardized 2-year contract business model is now on the wane.
The proliferation of these inexpensive, devices with competitive feature sets along with (smart) businesses addressing the Age of the Customer will create more and better devices. CyanogenMod may be the first of a new era where the smarphone ownership experiences is highly diferentiated with more options, features and choices.
