CyanogenMod is a custom ROM which has increasingly grown in its popularity over recent times. What started as a rather alternative version to stock android has fastly become the go-to android for those that want more customisation and tweaking beyond what comes out of the box with stock android. CyanogenMod (CM) has become so successful that it actually has started to become a ‘stock’ version itself pre-loaded on some devices like the OPPO N1 and the OnePlus One. This list also looks to be growing in the future with the Indian OEM recently announcing their new Canvas 5 smartphone will come loaded with CM. Furthermore, recent rumors suggest all the big players like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were all interested in buying Cyanogen (the company behind CM).
One of the reasons a lot of people use CM is that they are rooted. For instance, before it came stock on the small number of devices and before CM introduced their own CM Installer the only way to install CM was to be rooted. However, being rooted requires an additional piece of software known as a ‘custom recovery’ to be able to install custom ROMs. A custom recovery allows for a much better level and control of rooted devices including better backups (nandroids) as well as a far easier ability to flash ROMs, products and features. That said ClockworkMod (CWM) quickly became established itself as the go-to recovery for those wanting to install CM. In fact on the now stock versions of CM (like on the OnePlus One) CWM comes as the standard recovery option. Although that very well might be changing in the future.
An interesting image have emerged today (shown below) suggesting Cyanogen might actually be working on their own custom recovery service, dubbed ‘Cyanogen Recovery’. Now the image itself does not provide any details beyond the speculation that Cyanogen might be in the process of developing the new recovery. But the question remains what will this mean for CWM? It is highly unlikely that Cyanogen or CM would ever drop support for CWM or in fact TeamWin Recovery Project (TWRP), which is another popular custom recovery. As such users will most likely always be able to install the recovery they prefer. However, the leaked image at least does suggest the next time you purchase a device pre-installed with CM it might not come with the traditional CWM installed. How do you feel about Cyanogen working on their own advanced recovery? Would you prefer to use a Cyanogen recovery over CWM or TWRP? Let us know what you think
