When the Samsung Galaxy S5 came out earlier this year in April, many of us rushed out and picked one up, whether it was GSM and/or unlocked or carrier-branded, in the United States. But, the one thing that disappointed many new S5 owners was the bootloader. Verizon and AT&T opted to lock the Galaxy S5’s bootloader, so no flashing custom firmware. TowelRoot gained popularity because it could give root to these locked down devices, and eventually the bootloaders were unlocked with much effort.
Also, recall the release of the HTC One Mini 2, essentially a HTC One from last year in 2013, but in plastic instead of aluminium. Now, how gypped did the people that went out and bought one of those feel, especially given how it’s the same device internally, but nobody was really developing for it. Owners of the GSM One Mini 2, you can also cheer for this one.
Cyanogen has begun supporting the Verizon Galaxy S5 and the GSM HTC One Mini 2 with their fabulous custom version of Android. Yes, rejoice people that wanted freedom on a Verizon Galaxy device (really though). And you, owners of the HTC One Mini 2, whose device name is far too long for it’s actual payoff in the device itself. Now, if you really dislike Verizon’s crazy amount of bloatware garbage, or generally dislike HTC Sense or Touchwiz, then you can now join the global community of users of CyanogenMod 11, based on Android 4.4.4, KitKat.
The first builds for these two devices are nightlies, so expect some bugs. But, given that it’s so late in the Kit Kat and CM 11 life cycle, it should be pretty stable to use on a daily bases. The Verizon Galaxy S5, whose development name is kltevzw, got its first nightly build of CyanogenMod on the 21st, a few days ago. And the HTC One Mini 2, and this is the GSM one not the Verizon one, codename memul, got its first nightly the next day, on the 22nd. CyanogenMod now supports so many devices and users, it’s almost like they have their own OS, instead of the Android OS it’s based on and in.
Do you have either of these new-to-Cyanogen devices? Have you been waiting for this chance, to flash official CyanogenMod 11 to get that stock Android feel with bonus features like theme engine integration and quick toggles, to name only two of many? If you’ve got either device, will you go do that flash and enjoy having CyanogenMod on your device, or is it just nice to know that it could be done, even though it took a while? Let us know down below.