Imagine an immersive experience similar to Android’s music player, which is present on a users’ lock screen, only the application you can access is Instagram. You can browse through content and add hash tags, without even unlocking your device.
This is the new Mod platform from Cyanogen, which the company announced at Mobile World Congress. “Mods are integrated deeply into the OS. Today Google and Apple reserve those premium placements for themselves,” Cyanogen senior vice president of engineering, Stephen Lawler told iDigitalTimes.
“We’re really democratizing and opening up the platform to allow all people to have an opportunity for differentiation.”
Android is expected to surpass 4 billion users by 2020, according to Lawler. Still, the operating system, which was once known as the ideal software for customization has become more closed as manufacturers begin to lock down against things like rooting. Google itself has been vocal about its distaste for how manufacturers add heavily customized skins on top of Android. Many smartphone manufacturers have begun to clean up their custom interfaces to look a lot more like vanilla Android.
However, Cyanogen intends the Mod platform to be an intelligent and contextually aware layer, which goes on top of applications, without being a heavy, memory-guzzling program. A considerable amount of Mod is Microsoft integration. One such Mod that brings Microsoft to Android is Cortana, which executes tasks like controlling the camera application by voice.
Users can access and use Skype through their stock dialer application. OneNote can be used to take notes through the stock dialer, browser, email, and calendar applications.
Another Mod is the Social lockscreen, which brings apps like Instrgam to the forfront of a users' experience. Lawler notes this Mod in particular takes several steps away from access the highly popular application, making the Instrgram experience as simple turning on your phone to check the time.
Mods are smaller lighter files that take of less space than full applications. The Skype Mod is a file seven time smaller than the Skype application, according to Lawler. However it makes it so users don't have to deal with the Skype interface to do things like made a video call.
Cyanogen has many plans for its new program and wants to rollout Mods in many categories, including commerce, social, messaging and entertainment.
Mods will be made available on the Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based Cyanogen OS 13 in March on a host of devices running Cyanogen, including the OnePlus One, the Lenovo Zuk devices the Euphoria, Eureka and Utopia by Micromax, the Wileyfox Switft, the Obi and the BQ X5. These devices will sport branding indicating that they are “ModReady.” The Obi in particular is a device that will be available globally, including in the U.S. The company is also working on several device partnerships to bring more ModReady devices to the U.S., according to Cyanogen’s head of marketing Ryan Murkins.
While Mods are a way for consumers reimagine customization within Android, the platform does have its limitations. Users shouldn’t expect to get into the under layers of Mods in the same way they can root and modify Android.
“The Mods themselves have differentiation. Like the Instagram Mod, I basically set whom I follow and hashtags. So there’s that type of personalization,” Lawler told iDigi. “But the Mods are .apk [files]. They’re not openly hackable.”
