OnePlus made its One smartphone available for purchase – no invitation needed – on Black Friday which was no doubt good news to perspective buyers. Unfortunately, the startup received a bit of bad news recently as it relates to plans to launch in a new market.
As you may know, the OnePlus One runs a custom version of Android known as CyanogenMod. Such was to be the case in India as evident by the fact that a recent Cynaogen update included SAR values to comply with local Indian regulations.
But then, according to a blog post on the matter by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, Cyanogen seemingly went behind their back and granted exclusive rights to its operating system in India to another company. That other company is Micromax who is a direct competitor to Xiaomi in the region.
Pei added that the two companies have successfully cooperated to release the OnePlus One or carry out commercial operations in 17 countries and regions up to this point and that it’s unfortunate that a commitment made in India will not be held up.
The executive further added that they can’t explain Cyanogen’s decision because they don’t fully understand it themselves.
As for the India launch, OnePlus is going ahead with it on December 2. The company already had a small Android team working on a custom ROM based on Lollipop. In light of the Cyanogen news, they’ve shifted resources around to give the custom OS their full attention.
It’s worth pointing out that Cyanogen’s decision won’t affect customers outside of India, at least not for another year.
https://www.techspot.com/news/59010-cyanogen-shuns-oneplus-india-exclusive-access-custom-rom.html
