Cyanogen wants to help take Android away from Google

Android has belonged to Google for a very long time, and what was once declared to be an open-source mobile operating system isn’t really that open anymore. Cyanogen isn’t happy about that, especially since its current state means its very reliant on Google. So the company has announced plans to do something about that.

During The Information’s ‘Next Phase of Android‘ event in San Francisco, Cyanogen CEO Kirk McMaster said that the company is “attempting to take Android away from Google”. Apparently Cyanogen feels that Google’s control over the OS is holding back developers, and preventing them from getting the most out of Android.

Cyanogen envisions a world where developers can go as deep as they like when developing for Android. Currently they can’t do that, and Android Authority points out that features like Google Now could never be created by third party developers in Android’s current state. Cyanogen’s plans would allow this to happen, though it would lead to the loss of integrated Google services.

Cyanogen isn’t ditching Google’s version of Android just yet, but it does have plans to create and release its own ‘free-er’ version, complete with a dedicated app store, in the near future. As McMaster said at the even:

“Today, Cyanogen has some dependence on Google. Tomorrow, it will not. We will not be based on some derivative of Google in three to five years.”