Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster has always been vocal about its criticisms of Google's control over Android, but his latest remarks at The Information's The Future of Android are his strongest statements yet against Google.
McMaster had no qualms about making it clear to people what his company plans to do with CyanogenMod, a version of Android that is currently used in the OnePlus One and other devices made by Indian electronics company Micromax.
Speaking to a crowd of developers at the San Francisco event on Thursday, Jan. 22, McMaster introduced himself by saying: "I'm the CEO of Cyanogen. We're attempting to take Android away from Google."
McMaster's vision for his company is to be the "white horse that opens the entire platform up." He blasted Google's thinly veiled attempt to control Android by restricting companies from getting to the core of Android if they want to install Google's own suite of mobile services, such as Gmail, Play Store, and Maps, which are often difficult to compete with. McMaster says this limited access to Android prevents other developers from coming up with services that can compete with Google's own software.
"Android today and iOS are essentially shells for Google and Apple services," McMaster said (paywall). "Everybody else exists in these sandboxes with no access to the lower levels of the [operating system] kernel."
The outspoken CEO says Cyanogen is working on a "freer" and "more open" version of Android that can allow the company's partners to create tier-one services so that they "don't get stuck having ... to launch a stupid little application that inevitably gets acquired by Google or Apple."
In 18 months, he says developers can expect Cyanogen's app store to which they can contribute apps that dig deep into the innards of CyanogenMod.
"These companies can thrive on non-Google Android," he said.
An example of a Google service that other developers cannot emulate is Google Now, said McMaster. Google Now is built right into the very core of Android, but third-party apps are not. Other apps, such as Yahoo's Aviate launcher, could gain access to the core of CyanogenMod, if Yahoo decides to work with Cyanogen. Yahoo, like three other Silicon Valley bigwigs Microsoft, Samsung, and Amazon, is believed to be interested in buying Cyanogen.
There are few examples, if any, of companies that have successfully forked Android. Amazon has its Fire OS running on its devices, but while the Kindle tablets are selling fairly well, the Fire Phone was a massive flop.
McMaster, however, continues to be optimistic about the future of a free operating system for developers.
"Today, Cyanogen has some dependence on Google. Tomorrow, it will not," he said. "We will not be based on some derivative of Google in three to five years. There will be services that are doing the same old bulls*** with Android, and then there will be something different. That is where we're going here."
