The best part about Android is its open-source nature that gives manufacturers, users and tech enthusiasts limitless possibilities for customization and optimization. Custom ROMs are gaining in popularity with each passing day while manufacturer overlays like HTC’s Sense UI, Samsung’s TouchWiz or Motorola’s Motoblur are being considered as bloatware.
One of the best known custom ROM that enjoys a huge popularity owing to its well-thought design and carefully optimized code is CyanogenMod. This particular custom ROM offers more flexible user experience, increased customization options, wider set of features and better device performance. Extra features include better WiFi, Bluetooth USB tethering, continuous focus while shooting video and a special browser mode that leaves no browsing trail behind.
This custom ROM is the closest thing present to the stock Android experience. As per CM’s stat tracker, CyanogenMod has just hit its two millionth unique installation. Even though half of the ROMs are unofficial installs called KANGs but this achievement means that CyanogenMod has doubled its user base in a bit more than four months. As per the figures, Cyanogen Mod was installed on 8500 unique devices every single day approximately, excluding those users that had decided not to report their install to the CM stat tracker.
As per Cyanogen Mod staff, each device is counted a single time only, by registering a non-reversible encrypted hash of the device’s IMEI and MEID. Another definitive factor that could attribute to CM’s user base doubling is, the continuous delay of rolling out Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich official updates over the past couple of months.
Approximately there are 350 million unique Android devices which means CyanogenMod was installed on a bit more than 0.5% of all Android devices. At present CyanogenMod is working to deliver CM9, that will be based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS. With manufacturers ignoring an official ICS update to a number of devices, CyanogenMod will only grow in popularity as more and more people opt to adopt the custom firmware to access the latest Android experience.