OnePlus One to Forgo CyanogenMod in India

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It appears that the deal between Oppo offshoot OnePlus and Cyanogen Inc. dangles merely by a thread. Last week, OnePlus announced that its One model would launch in India on December 2. Unlucky for all “Flagship Killer’s” fans, Cyanogen decided to granted exclusive rights to “Cyanogen OS” over to Micromax, one of the main rivals to OnePlus in Asia.

Cyanogen’s decision came as a surprise both to OnePlus and Indian users. One of the latest OTAs (38R) included the SAR regulations required to enter the Indian market. According to One’s makers, the Indian market launch has been in preparation for a very long time. The decision made by Cyanogen doesn’t mean that the One is dropped and that cygn won’t provide Lollipop. The device will be supported over the next year. OnePlus also stated that next OTA will pack some surprises that will make “users happy.”

This weird set of events forced OnePlus’s engineers to focus on their own software. Indian devices will get the community build next month, and a stable Lollipop release will come in February that will be “stable, fast and lightweight.” The company will avoid unnecessary bloatware and skinning. The ROM will contain features requested by the community.

The announcement from OnePlus is probably a signal that the cooperation with Cyanogen Inc. may come to an end in other regions as well. It wasn’t ever set in stone permanently, but many users bought the One because of its firmware, which was light, clean, and customizable. Hopefully OnePlus will manage to keep its software in a similar spirit.

[via OnePlus Blog]