CM9 Progress update, looks hopeful for many Devices

CM9 is easily one of the second most anticipated launches when it comes to device software. The first was Android 4.0, ICS. CM9 aims to bring that AOSP Ice Cream Sandwich goodness to as many devices as possible. Many of which we know have no hopes of getting an official update from anyone other than the CyanogenMOD team. For many, CM9 will be your only hope. One thing we all want to know are ETA’s, but we also know that we can only sit and wait for announcements regarding CM9 from them and soliciting answers generally don’t go over well. This morning they released a progress update to help keep us in the know as much as they can. It outlines the plan and the progress of a lot of different things.

Many of you that run CM7 do so for the vast customizations and settings you can alter that weren’t previously available in your device. With the release of ICS, Google jumped on board and offered many of the same things that CM7 offered. Now the CM team is in the process of reevaluating the various aspects of ICS against their custom modifications to remove or add in things that Google didn’t already include/exclude. This process takes a little bit of time.

They already have a number of devices up and running with CM9 and they are primarily focused on getting as many up and running as possible before launching the ROM. Besides the current Alpha build you can get your hands on for the Galaxy S (available at XDA and via ROM Manager) the most likely devices to see a working version are based on processors. The OMAP4, MSM8660/7X30 and Exynos chip sets are the most functional ones so far and should be the first inline to get some CM9 love. They also have a couple Tegra 2 devices in the pipeline such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and An ASUS Transformer.

There are a number of things that are holding them back at the moment but should be worked out soon, like they always are. Google made some major changes to the Android framework that broke compatibility with older proprietary camera and graphics drivers so that they could achieve some of the awesome performance we all saw on the Galaxy Nexus.

As far as specific devices that will be getting CM9, that is not completely up in the air. Of course the Nexus S is, and so should all of the Galaxy S line of devices. Along with most of the Galaxy S II phones. Beyond that, I am not entirely sure. We may bring you oodles of news, but wich chip is in every single device out there is beyond me unless I owned it. You should know if it is your device and can either be happy or sad at this point. One specific device was mentioned in the update though, the original Droid is out. Not only out as far as getting any CM9 love from the CyanogenMOD team, but out as far as future support for CM7 as well. As they so candidly put it “sorry Droid1 owners, we’re dropping support for you. Time to upgrade ”

If you have a Galaxy S device though and are interested in checking out the progress, head on over to XDA for all the info. There is a build for the Sprint version and the GSM version.

Source: CyanogenMOD Blog