Cyanogenmod 10.1 Review
When it comes to the custom ROM scene for Android, the one name that
instantly comes to mind is CyanogenMod, and for good reason! This is where it
all started, or at least where it all got real and big. When Steve Kondik
(Cyanogen) started the project just to improve Android for himself and share
the fruits of his labour with other users of the platform, he didn’t have the
remotest of clues that it would one day get to this magnitude. Today, it’s
undoubtedly THE biggest third-party Android customization project in the world,
with support for hundreds of devices and counting, both in form of official
ROMs and unofficial ports by third-party developers. Join us as we take an
in-depth look at CyanogenMod 10.1 and all the features it offers that make it
one of the best custom Android ROMs around.
Look And Feel
One of the
key philosophies behind CyanogenMod is to focus on functionality rather than
design, and that’s been a great thing since ICS when Android’s design got
revamped to what it is now. That’s why on the surface, CyanogenMod 10.1 may
look just like pure vanilla Android, and for good reason, since it is based on
pure vanilla Android, meaning you wouldn’t find even the slightest traces of
HTC Sense, Samsung Touch Wiz, MOTOBLUR or any such manufacturer-customized
version of Android in it, as you can see below in the home screen and the app
drawer of CyanogenMod 10.1.
That said;
there are a plethora of changes under the hood that set it apart from plain
vanilla Android. The launcher itself may look like that of stock Android, but
it’s actually CyanogenMod’s own custom version called Trebuchet. If you try
dragging an icon somewhere, you’ll start seeing the extra options it offers,
and that’s just the start.
As you can
see above, you can not only remove the icon, but also edit it. Furthermore,
CyanogenMod ships with a collection of wallpapers of its own (CM Wallpapers);
in addition to Android’s default ones.
CyanogenMod Apps
You must
have noticed a few extra apps in the app drawer screenshot above. None of them
have been added from the Play Store (that screenshot was taken immediately
after installing the ROM), but rather ship with CyanogenMod itself. They
include a media player, a file browser and a terminal emulator. The former two are
CyanogenMod-exclusive while the terminal emulator is same as the Android
Terminal Emulator app available on Play Store.
Also, while
the messaging app may look exactly like the stock one, it is in fact heavily
modified to deliver a much more powerful and customizable experience. Lastly,
you’ll notice an icon for Sound Recorder in the app drawer. It is actually a
system app that comes as a part of Android itself, it is hidden from the app
drawer by default and is accessible as a recording feature within other
components of the OS; CyanogenMod adds an icon for it to provide users direct
access to it.
We have
already written about CyanogenMod’s music player, file browser and messaging
apps. You can learn more about them in our detailed reviews at the links below.
The inclusion
of a media player and a file manager ensures that if you choose not to rely on
Google’s ecosystem or just want to use the ROM on a device that you want to
keep offline, you already start off with all the basic apps that you’re going
to need.
There is also
a DSP Manager app here, as well as the clock app that doesn’t show up in the
app drawer but can be seen as a widget right on the home screen as well as the
lock screen, but we’ll be taking a look at both these in the Settings section,
as they are both configurable from there.
CyanogenMod
10.1 Settings
What makes
CyanogenMod truly powerful is the plethora of additional settings it offers for
customizing the ROM and having a more complete control over Android’s features.
All these settings can be found within the default Settings app, laid out in
the same settings interface that you’re already familiar with. Let’s take a
more detailed look at them in the order they appear. Note that we’ll only be
reviewing the settings that have been added by CyanogenMod, and will therefore
skip the unmodified sections.
Cell
Broadcasts
For most
part, the ‘Wireless & Networks’ section of the Settings remains close to
stock, though you’ll notice one new option under the ‘More…’ option by the name
of Cell Broadcasts. This basically lets you choose which cell broadcast
messages you want to receive, and opt out of the ones you don’t want to bother
you. These include alerts for extreme and severe threats, AMBER alerts, ETWS
(Earthquake Tsuname Warning System) alerts and CMAS (Commercial Mobile Alert
System) broadcasts. In addition to opting out of them, you can also choose
change alert settings such as notifications, sound, vibration, sound duration,
text-to-speech for speaking out alerts, and showing opt-out dialog after displaying
the first CMAS alerts to be able to easily disable them (other than
presidential alerts).
The next
bunch of options are in the ‘Interface’ section of the Settings, and all relate
to how you can change the user interface components of the ROM, add and modify
different controls and toggles to quickly access your most used options, and
overall enhance your user experience.
Launcher
As mentioned
above, CyanogenMod ships with Trebuchet as its home screen launcher, which
looks identical to the stock Android launcher but is way more customizable, and
this is where you can tweak it to your liking.
The General
section is the briefest, so let’s start with that. Many Android users complain
about the lack of landscape mode for their home screen. Trebuchet takes care of
that by adding support for landscape mode and auto rotation, which you can
enable here. And if you have just customized your home screen to your liking
and fear messing it up by mistake, you can set everything to stay locked in
place. You can also hide the status bar to extend the home screen further,
though we’d suggest you read on and see what else is in store for you in the
full screen department, and you’ll forget about this option altogether!
In the Home
Screen section, you can tweak a lot of options pertaining to the way things are
displayed on your home screens. Each option comes with a description to make
sure you don’t feel lost.
Similarly,
the Drawer section lets you customize how apps are displayed in your Apps and
widgets drawer. You can choose between transition effects, join the sections
together and even hide apps selectively.
Lastly, you
can customize the dock by changing the number of apps it displays, adding more
pages to it that you can then access by swiping on it sideways just like the
home screens, and more.
Lock
Screen
CyanogenMod’s
lock screen comes with a bunch of additional features, and the first one that
you’ll notice is multiple shortcuts to directly launch the apps of your choice.
What’s more
– these shortcuts are fully customizable! Just hit ‘Slider shortcuts’ under
Lock screen, and you’ll be able to easily assign a different one to each slot
and even select a custom icon for it.
In addition
to these shortcuts, you can choose your lock screen security type, and tweak
several options for the selected one such as making the pattern visible,
choosing a 4×4, 5×5 or even 6×6 pattern in addition to the default 3×3 one,
toggle visibility for pattern, errors and dots, and set separate custom delays
for automatic screen lock after timeout and manual screen off, etc.
Themes
If you’re
finding things to be a bit too dull and completely stock so far in terms of
looks, your patience is about to be rewarded. CyanogenMod ships with a powerful
theme engine that can change the look of the entire UI based on the theme you
choose. Some themes may change just the app icons on your home screens and in
the app drawer, some change how the menus look, some apply to widgets as well,
and then there are those that change pretty much everything. We like Android’s
own stock looks but are big fans of transparency, and the awesome HOLO GLASS
theme lets us apply that to the stock settings app as well as many other
components of the OS, as you can see in the screenshots below.
Although no
extra themes are shipped with CM by default, you can find countless options
available in both free and paid variants on Google Play, XDA-Developers and
many other Android modding communities – just Google for it and you’ll more
options at your disposal than you’ll know what to do with. Before we move on to
the next section, here’s how HOLO GLASS has changed our Dialler and Messaging
apps. The background is actually our desktop wallpaper, not just a static
background applied to these apps.
System
This is
perhaps the most extensively customizable section of the entire ROM. Here, you
can tweak major UI components such as the status bar, the quick settings panel,
the notification drawer, the power menu and the navigation bar as well as
toggle the expanded desktop (full screen) mode and Pie controls (yes,
CyanogenMod 10.1 includes Paranoid Android’s famous controls), and customize
LED notifications.
Status bar
When it
comes to the status bar, you can show/hide the clock as well as choose AM/PM
display, and change the battery and signal icon styles from several available
options. You can even set the status bar itself as a brightness control slider
that will change brightness as you swipe your finger along it.
Quick Settings panel
Starting with
Jelly Bean, Android ships with a section in the notification pull-down that
acts as a quick settings panel. CyanogenMod basically supercharges it, letting
you customize it to your liking.
You can add,
remove and reposition toggles, and also specify how some of them behave. There
are plenty of options available to add, pretty much for every feature you’d
want. We have customized ours to add the features we need to quickly access
most often, as you can see in the second screenshot below.
For quick
and convenient access, you can even set this panel to always appear by default
when you swipe down from the edge of your choice (left or right) on the status
bar.
Power widget
If you don’t
fancy the above controls and would rather have a small list of toggles right in
the regular notification shade, the Power widget can do just that for you.
You can
select what buttons display in it, specify their order, and tweak some
appearance & behaviour settings for the widget.
Expanded desktop
Want to utilize
your screen real estate to the fullest? Why not get rid of the status bar as
well as the navigation bar? Just choose whether you’d want the status bar to
remain visible or not in this mode and you’ll then be able to go full-screen by
selecting the option from the power button’s long-press menu.
Here is how
the home screen and your apps will appear while expanded desktop is enabled. As
you can see, I have set the status bar to be hidden in the first one and
visible in the second one, while the navigation bar is hidden in both in this
mode.
Pie controls
In case you
thinking how to go about navigating between your apps and home screens while in
full screen mode, that can also be taken care of with Pie navigation controls.
This option can be found at the very end of the System section but we have
briefly jumped to it early on because it is most relevant to the full-screen
mode, as you’re about to see.
When
enabled, Pie controls bring up navigation buttons as well as status bar info
when you swipe from an edge of the screen. You can customize the size of the
controls as well as choose the screen edge along which they are displayed. To
use them, simply swipe inward from the selected edge, keeping your finger on
the screen and bringing it to the button that you want to use, before releasing
it.
Now let’s
resume in the order and take a look at the option after Expanded desktop.
Power menu
When you
long-press the power key, you get more options in CyanogenMod than in stock
Android, as you must have noticed in the screenshot shown in the Expanded
desktop section above. A great thing about these options is that you can choose
the ones you want to be displayed in the menu.
In the
second screenshot, we have stripped down the power menu to the bare essentials,
removing all the additional options except for ‘Reboot’ from it to get back to
basics.
Clock widget
CyanogenMod
ships with a clock widget of its own called clock that works on both the home
screen and the lock screen. It’s the same widget that you have seen on the home
screen and lock screen images above. In addition to the time and date, it is
capable of displaying weather conditions (from Yahoo! Weather) as well as your
calendar events, and all this information is customizable from here.
For the
clock, you can choose between analog and digital items, toggle the display of
any alarms that you have set, and customize the clock’s display colours and
font.
When it
comes to weather conditions, you can toggle them on/off, choose weather source,
set a custom location if you want (it uses your current location by default),
and tweak several visual aspects of the weather display. For your calendar
events, you can specify what calendars to display events from, how far into the
future to look, what types of events to show and hide and what information to
display for each event, along with visual tweaks for how the events are
displayed. The settings will apply to the widget on both your home screen and
lock screen.
Notification light &
Battery light
These two
sections let you specify how you want your phone’s notification LED to behave.
Under notification light, you can set the default notification colour, as well
as choose it for missed calls and voicemail. In addition, you can add any of
your installed apps to the list and specify custom colours for their
notifications as well, so that you’ll get the idea of which app you have
received a notification from by just glancing at your phone, even if its screen
is off.
Similarly,
the battery light section lets you toggle the LED notification for your battery
status and choose colours for low, charging and charged states, as well as set
it to pulse if the battery is low.
Buttons and layout
(Navigation bar)
If you’re
using a device that ships without hardware front buttons and instead uses the
capacitive navigation bar, you can customize its buttons from this section. It
is possible to add more buttons to the list from the available options, change
their shortcuts (not possible for the home button) or rearrange their order
(for the central buttons only). You can see the results in the second
screenshot below.
Quick launch shortcuts
Just the way
CyanogenMod offers you extra options for the unlock ring on the lock screen,
you can similarly customize the Google Now ring that comes up when you swipe up
from the bottom edge.
All you have
to do is drag the dotted circle and you’ll be able to see a new slot on each
side of the default Google Now one. Drag over to it, and you’ll be able to set
an action for it from a long list of available options ranging from toggles for
torch and ringer modes to taking a screenshot and killing the currently active
app, just to name a few. The screenshots above displays the customized ring in
action.
Phew, that
concludes the System section of CM settings, but if you were thinking that’s
all there is to this ROM’s customizations, think again! There’s plenty more, so
let’s get straight to it.
Sound
To what
extent can one customize sounds of an Android device, you ask? Just take a look
at the Sounds section of CM settings – it spans three screens, and that’s
excluding any sub-sections! As you can see below, there are options for
everything ranging from volume controls, ring mode and volume panel style to
music effects, quiet hours, ringtone choice, system sound toggles,
headset-related tweaks and more!
As you can
see above, it’s hard to think of a sound-related option that hasn’t been
considered here. All options available here are self-explanatory, as you can
see in case of the volume panel style below.
This section
houses two great features namely Quiet hours and Music effects (DSP Manager).
Let’s take a more detailed look at each of them.
Quiet hours
The Quiet
hours feature is pretty awesome; it lets you specify times when you don’t want
to be disturbed, and even lets you choose the type of alerts you want to
disable for notifications during these hours, including sound, hepatic
feedback, vibrations and notification LED.
Music effects (DSP Manager)
Remember the
app icon for DSP Manager that we mentioned when taking a look at the
CyanogenMod apps? It is a killer app that can tweak the sound output of your
device in a way that you’ll find it hard to believe your ears!
You can
enable features such as bass boost, dynamic range compression and a full
graphic equalizer separately for your phone’s speaker, wired earphones and
Bluetooth headsets. There are several equalizer presets available, and you can
choose the strength level for any effects you apply.
Display
Unlike the
‘Sound’ section, you wouldn’t see a plethora of options under Display, but
that’s because the UI tweaks have already been covered to the extreme in the
earlier sections and there’s little to do with the display beyond that.
However, CM still manages to squeeze an extra option in here in form of
customizable auto-rotate settings.
In addition
to the default on/off, you can now specify the angles your device can rotate
to, and even set the volume buttons to automatically swap when in landscape
mode (volume-up becomes volume-down and vice versa) that can be more optimal on
some devices (depending on the volume button position).
Profiles
CyanogenMod
10.1 ships with a powerful profile system that allows you to set how your
device behaves when different profiles are active. You can switch to a profile
from the power menu (by long-pressing the power button) and then tapping
Profile. Your currently active profile name is shown there by default.
These
profiles aren’t limited to merely choosing the volume levels or screen
brightness levels – you can specify settings ranging from features like mobile
data, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, syncing and hotspot mode to individual volume
levels for alarms, media, ringtones and notifications, and choose your desired
ringing and lock screen modes for each profile.
Not only
that, but you can also manage how different applications behave for each
profile, which is made easy with application groups.
You can
create as many new profiles as you want, or edit the existing ones to your
liking. Similarly, you can add or remove apps to the existing groups, or create
new groups of your own, and specify settings you’d want for them for each
profile under that profile.
As an example,
you can have one profile where everything is silent except for incoming calls,
and all app notifications are also silenced other than for an app group you’ve
created by the name of VoIP, in which you have Viber, Tango and Skype etc. Or
you could have a profile in which only notifications from your social media
apps are ignored – whatever your requirements, you can create a profile
tailored for them.
Security
CyanogenMod
offers enhanced security options for your lock screen, some of which we have looked
at earlier in the Lock screen customization section. Under the Screen lock
section in Security, you get more flexibility in certain options, specifically
when it comes to the pattern lock. In addition to the regular 3×3, you can also
set up to a 6×6 pattern for added security.
Also, you’ll
notice a new option at the end of the Security section labelled SMS message
limit. It lets you define how many messages an app can automatically send
within a set time interval before it is deemed as suspicious activity and
requires confirmation from you for any additional texts.
Other than
these, this section offers pretty much the same options as stock Android.
Language
& Input
You’ll see
mostly standard options over here as well, with the exception of two new ones:
a Selector notification toggle, and Volume key cursor control.
In case have
multiple input methods (like keyboards) installed, enabling Selector
notifications will show you a persistent notification for selecting the input
method to use whenever an input field is active. The volume key cursor control
option, on the other hand, lets you control the on-screen cursor – where
present – using the device’s volume keys.
Developer
Options
Being Android 4.2,*-based, CyanogenMod 10.1 comes with the Developer
options section hidden by default, so you’ll need to unhide it before you can tinker with
the settings there. You’ll see a few options added by CyanogenMod here as well,
in addition to the standard options found in stock Android. You can toggle the
advanced reboot menu from here that lets you directly reboot into boot loader
or recovery, in addition to the normal rebooting.
The Launch
Tools section here is meant to provide developers with quick access to several
tools that can come handy when developing or debugging their apps. These
include a vast range of tools such as Accounts Tester, Bad Behaviour, Cache
Abuser, Configuration, Connectivity, GTalk Service Monitor, Holo Spiral,
Instrumentation, Media Provider, Package Browser, Pointer Location, Running
processes, Sync Tester and Water (Live wallpaper).
Getting back
to the main Developer options menu, you can also choose the root access level
between apps only, ADB only, both apps & ADB, and none, toggle displaying
the USB debugging notification icon while debugging mode is enabled, and enter
hostname of your choice for identification in ADB mode.
Lastly, by
scrolling all the way to the bottom, you can set the back button to kill the
currently active app upon long-press, in order to quickly terminate misbehaving
apps.
Superuser
Pretty much every custom ROM comes already rooted, and CyanogenMod is no
exception. Though instead of the conventional Superuser app by ChainsDD or
SuperSU app by Chainfire, CyanogenMod 10.1 comes with root management
functionality built into the ROM’s settings interface itself, in form of
Superuser by Koush (the guy behind ClockworkMod recovery and a senior CM developer).
It works just like you’d expect – asking you for root permissions whenever an
app requests them, and showing you a list of apps that you have granted or
denied permissions.
From the
list, you can tap an app’s entry to see its root permissions and make Superuser
forget the remembered setting in case you want to change its access, which you
can then do when prompted upon launching it next. In addition, you can see a
log of all root access elevation attempts made by apps, and whether they were
allowed or denied.
From
Superuser’s settings, you can set if superuser access should be restricted to
apps, ADB or both, toggle a setting that would show superuser requests from
only those apps that declare that they require root access, choose the default
automatic response to these requests, add a PIN protection so that no one else
can grant apps root access, choose a timeout interval of your choice, toggle
logging and tweak notification settings for the toasts that appear when apps
are granted or denied superuser access.
Performance
If you’ve
ever overclocked your Android device, you’re likely familiar with the SetCPU
app. While many other ROMs would require you to use that or some other similar
app to make the best of your custom kernel, CyanogenMod has everything taken
care of in this department as well. Under ‘Performance’, you’ll find all the
options you’ll ever need to tweak your processor, I/O scheduler and memory
management exactly the way you want. You can also enable 16-bit transparency
and choose a colour dithering method of your choice for improving the graphics
output.
For the
processor, you can choose your CPU governor and set the minimum as well as
maximum CPU frequency of your choice, though the options shown for these will
depend on the kernel that you have installed. For our Nexus 4, the default
CyanogenMod kernel provided a bunch of CPU governors and frequency options to
choose from.
You can
similarly choose your I/O scheduler, and ram size. There are a few additional
options available as well, like allowing purging of bitmap assets when freeing
up RAM and setting your chosen CPU & I/O scheduler settings to apply each
time you reboot your device.
CyanogenMod
Updates
Found under
‘About phone’, this section is basically what OTA updates are to stock ROMs.
Every time a new version of CyanogenMod is out, you will be notified of it, and
can download it from here. You can choose how frequently should the ROM check
for updates.
You can
specify whether you want updates for the stable version only, or for
pre-release versions (nightlies and release candidates etc.) as well. Your
selected update will then be downloaded and applied via recovery.
This sums up
our extensive tour of CyanogenMod 10.1, and we’ve tried our best to make sure
no feature of the ROM was left out. So, do you use CyanogenMod as your daily
driver, or prefer some other ROM? What are your primary reasons for using it
(or not using it)? Which CM feature do you like best?
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