ZUK working on their own International ROM, is this the end of Cyanogen cooperation?


zuk z2 pro hands on

Lenovo backed ZUK launched with a bang last year with a low cost flagship boasting Cyanogen OS, however is that cooperation now coming to an end?

ZUK have launched 2 new phones this year, the ZUK Z2 Pro is a Snapdragon 820 flagship with 6GB RAM and 5.2-inch display, and the ZUK Z2 is a slightly smaller Snapdragon 820 phone with 4GB RAM. Both devices have only been launched in China at this time, and both only come with ZUK’s own ZUI 1.9 OS.

This is a similar story as to the ZUK Z1 launch when the Chinese version of the Z1 received ZUI and the International model Cyanogen OS, however this time around the Lenovo backed phone maker has made no official comment if their 2 new devices will get the popular 3rd party system for international buyers.

Gizchina News of the week


Another damning piece of news is a new ZUIAndroid website set up by ZUK to show off the features of ZUI 2.0 (coming soon). The site is in English and Chinese, and the official ZUK forums even have a thread open to discuss developer and overseas ROM support.

With ZUK working on their own multilingual overseas operating system it could mean we won’t see CM officially on future ZUK phones launched abroad!

We’re still waiting on an official statement, but what do you potential ZUK owners think of this?

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Previous ZTE Blade A2 released for $100 with PDAF and fingerprint scanner
Next ZUK Z2 goes on sale today, expect it to sell out fast

42 Comments

  1. Ricardo Alonso
    June 7, 2016

    Zui 2.0 looks pretty good! Really dont care about Cyanogen OS

    • Aabel Tom
      September 6, 2016

      How did you manage to update it to ZUI 2.0? When I tried to, it showed that it had no internet connection. I tried several methods and my last option is to download the ROM manually, which is risky. Any tips?

      • Marcin Rakowski
        September 6, 2016

        Flyvpn app. Choose chinese server and try. If it dont work force stop updater app and clear cache of this updater app, and try again.

  2. Alessio Igor Bogani
    June 7, 2016

    I think that no one cares about Cyanogen OS in particular but instead about the chance to have a thirdy party ROMs on my smartphone (at least for me). Nowadays vendors offer very good ROM but fail to maintain and update it (and very often they don’t release source code).

    • AbdulB1
      June 7, 2016

      yea all MTK phones never released the source code except for Android One series.

  3. David
    June 7, 2016

    Do you realize that cos on zuk z1 was a joke, milkion bugs, no updates at all??! I gave that pile of crap to my kids to play games on it, it’s worth nothing more.

  4. Karly Johnston
    June 7, 2016

    They already gave a statement on their blog saying the lack of support from Cyanogen ruined the chance to partner with them again.

  5. MattD
    June 7, 2016

    I haven’t seen a single person happy with cyano os on the z1, so maybe that’s for the better

    • VMortens
      June 7, 2016

      Yet the expectations to se the COS there are high. Maybe that’s because so many persons still don’t see the difference about what Cyanogen Mod is and they expect COS to be same thing? Could be.

      • Joel Adames
        June 7, 2016

        The deal is in the day to day android has improved its funtionality making it less of hassle to deal with cutting away the need of rooting in some cases and tweaking stuff on some others. Then many new apps compensate for many missing bit from OEM ROMs so the market might be willing to dish CM …

        More so, people that know what a CM ROM is or its benefits are not even near a majority of the market nor will (we) ever be…

        You want sales? Huh?!

        6gb RAM = snappy phone.
        Nice DECENT CAMERA = good pictures
        Audio CHIPs = good sound

        THEN you get great sales.
        Do it by software = iPhones or do it by raw power = S7 10 g5 etc etc
        But do it. We don’t love touchwiz but the crazy galaxies sell like hot cakes so something they do rigth.
        And we migth not like iPhones so the same is true.

        Prove me wrong… I’m flexible.

        • AbdulB1
          June 7, 2016

          Google wanted to others to ‘polish’ their Android OS many manufacturers and developers (like CM and others) have polished it to a degree that they don’t need much help from others now.

        • VMortens
          June 8, 2016

          You don’t see the difference between Cyanogen Mod and Cyanogen OS yourself. CM cannot be dished by market, because it’s not commercial. COS can, because, according to OnePlus and ZUK they don’t provide.
          CM is something different – enthusiasts lead project. Some COS people came out of CM and started commercial project some time ago – Cyanogen OS.

  6. Ricardo A.
    June 7, 2016

    Zui 2.0 looks pretty good! Really dont care about Cyanogen OS

    • Aabel Tom
      September 6, 2016

      How did you manage to update it to ZUI 2.0? When I tried to, it showed that it had no internet connection. I tried several methods and my last option is to download the ROM manually, which is risky. Any tips?

    • Marcin Rakowski
      September 6, 2016

      Flyvpn app. Choose chinese server and try. If it dont work force stop updater app and clear cache of this updater app, and try again.

  7. Alessio Igor Bogani
    June 7, 2016

    I think that no one cares about Cyanogen OS in particular but instead about the chance to have a thirdy party ROMs on my smartphone (at least for me). Nowadays vendors offer very good ROM but fail to maintain and update it (and very often they don’t release source code).

    • AbdulB1
      June 7, 2016

      yea all MTK phones never released the source code except for Android One series.

  8. Mark Hedley
    June 7, 2016

    Hi Andi, its mark, these two web sites are sites i’ve setup… I’ve been in contact with ZUK about cooperation for ROM project on multi language but recent weeks the conversions stopped. I guess due to the launch of Z2 and whatever else is going on. However I remain optimistic for an official reply and thanks from ZUK. I simply hope to promote ZUK and ZUI to those global fans who are interested in the products. There is no profit from the sites, they are add free and will remain so. In no way has any attempt been made on my side to say the sites are official so I wanted to come here to just put my side of the story 🙂

    I hope to work with ZUK, want to bring their brand to Global users more and more much like I helped with Xiaomi and MIUI.

    You can message me on zukfans.eu ‘zukfans’ admin.

    Cheers,

    Mark

    • Joel Adames
      June 7, 2016

      If you ever do…
      Customers want to be heard. You could open a forum for so called owners for them to throw in suggestions so you can improve OS on their request… not just corporative decisions based on what another company did or such.

  9. June 7, 2016

    Deja vu. Didn’t something like this go down with OnePlus and CM?

  10. Guest
    June 7, 2016

    Do you realize that cos on zuk z1 was a joke, milkion bugs, no updates at all??! I gave that pile of crap to my kids to play games on it, it’s worth nothing more.

  11. balcobomber25
    June 7, 2016

    First OnePlus now Lenovo/Zuk, it seems the problem lies with CM themselves.

    • saor
      June 8, 2016

      I came to the same conclusion as well. If people want cyanogen they should wait till a version of cyanogenmod is compiled and put out least that has better updates than cyanogen OS.

    • VMortens
      June 8, 2016

      It’s not CM – Cyanogen Mod and Cyanogen OS are two non related projects. Of which, second one is lead buy some people coming from older CM project and is fully commercial.
      CM is nothing official, so it cannot be provided by phone manufacturers. It’s done by enthusiast devs.

      • balcobomber25
        June 8, 2016

        I am well aware of the differences, although they are related as Cyanogen OS is based on the source code of CM. Cyanogen OS is a closed source version of CM. I (like most people on the web) use the two interchangeably even though it is incorrect. Just easier to write CM.

        • VMortens
          June 8, 2016

          I get you now. Better be careful, cause as you can see it causes lots of confusion to others. I read the other day that ZUK promised CM13 for Z1 model and they’re backing of 🙂 It’s getitng messy.

  12. Karly Johnston
    June 7, 2016

    They already gave a statement on their blog saying the lack of support from Cyanogen ruined the chance to partner with them again.

  13. MattD
    June 7, 2016

    I haven’t seen a single person happy with cyano os on the z1, so maybe that’s for the better

    • VMortens
      June 7, 2016

      Yet the expectations to se the COS there are high. Maybe that’s because so many persons still don’t see the difference about what Cyanogen Mod is and they expect COS to be same thing? Could be.

    • Joel Adames
      June 7, 2016

      The deal is in the day to day android has improved its funtionality making it less of hassle to deal with cutting away the need of rooting in some cases and tweaking stuff on some others. Then many new apps compensate for many missing bit from OEM ROMs so the market might be willing to dish CM …

      More so, people that know what a CM ROM is or its benefits are not even near a majority of the market nor will (we) ever be…

      You want sales? Huh?!

      6gb RAM = snappy phone.
      Nice DECENT CAMERA = good pictures
      Audio CHIPs = good sound

      THEN you get great sales.
      Do it by software = iPhones or do it by raw power = S7 10 g5 etc etc
      But do it. We don’t love touchwiz but the crazy galaxies sell like hot cakes so something they do rigth.
      And we migth not like iPhones so the same is true.

      Prove me wrong… I’m flexible.

    • AbdulB1
      June 7, 2016

      Google wanted to others to ‘polish’ their Android OS many manufacturers and developers (like CM and others) have polished it to a degree that they don’t need much help from others now.

    • VMortens
      June 8, 2016

      You don’t see the difference between Cyanogen Mod and Cyanogen OS yourself. CM cannot be dished by market, because it’s not commercial. COS can, because, according to OnePlus and ZUK they don’t provide.
      CM is something different – enthusiasts lead project. Some COS people came out of CM and started commercial project some time ago – Cyanogen OS.

  14. Mark Hedley
    June 7, 2016

    Hi Andi, its mark, these two web sites are sites i’ve setup… I’ve been in contact with ZUK about cooperation for ROM project on multi language but recent weeks the conversions stopped. I guess due to the launch of Z2 and whatever else is going on. However I remain optimistic for an official reply and thanks from ZUK. I simply hope to promote ZUK and ZUI to those global fans who are interested in the products. There is no profit from the sites, they are add free and will remain so. In no way has any attempt been made on my side to say the sites are official so I wanted to come here to just put my side of the story 🙂

    Each image was translated by my friend into text then me into English from that Chinese wording. The process took around 2 days to complete both sites.

    I hope to work with ZUK, want to bring their brand to Global users more and more much like I helped with Xiaomi and MIUI.

    You can message me on zukfans.eu ‘zukfans’ admin.

    Cheers,

    Mark

    • Joel Adames
      June 7, 2016

      If you ever do…
      Customers want to be heard. You could open a forum for so called owners for them to throw in suggestions so you can improve OS on their request… not just corporative decisions based on what another company did or such.

  15. 10basetom
    June 7, 2016

    Deja vu. Didn’t something like this go down with OnePlus and CM?

  16. balcobomber25
    June 7, 2016

    First OnePlus now Lenovo/Zuk, it seems the problem lies with CM themselves.

    • saor
      June 8, 2016

      I came to the same conclusion as well. If people want cyanogen they should wait till a version of cyanogenmod is compiled and put out least that has better updates than cyanogen OS.

    • VMortens
      June 8, 2016

      It’s not CM – Cyanogen Mod and Cyanogen OS are two non related projects. Of which, second one is lead buy some people coming from older CM project and is fully commercial.
      CM is nothing official, so it cannot be provided by phone manufacturers. It’s done by enthusiast devs.

    • balcobomber25
      June 8, 2016

      I am well aware of the differences, although they are related as Cyanogen OS is based on the source code of CM. Cyanogen OS is a closed source version of CM. I (like most people on the web) use the two interchangeably even though it is incorrect. Just easier to write CM.

    • VMortens
      June 8, 2016

      I get you now. Better be careful, cause as you can see it causes lots of confusion to others. I read the other day that ZUK promised CM13 for Z1 model and they’re backing of 🙂 It’s getitng messy.

  17. yalok
    June 7, 2016

    ok, no cyanogen, but at least something close to stock android please.

  18. yalok
    June 7, 2016

    ok, no cyanogen, but at least something close to stock android please.