This morning, a report came out from The Information claiming that AT&T is talking with Cyanogen about the possibility of releasing a phone on their network using the company’s version of Android and ZTE hardware. Understandably, this must sound extremely foreign to most people as Cyanogen has only released phones with their software powering them in countries like China, however now the company may be gearing up to give US citizens a taste of the action.
AT&T has a history with new OS flavors hitting their network first, with Apple’s first iPhone being an exclusive alongside Amazon’s Fire Phone which notably flopped horribly, however we all know it’s a different story for the iPhone. If Cyanogen and AT&T go through with this alongside ZTE, we could be looking at a whole new experience for Android users as Cyanogen and AT&T will mainly be in charge of the OS with ZTE taking care of the hardware obviously.
It’s pretty safe to assume that bloatware like the DirecTV app will come preinstalled on this device as it’ll be solely locked to AT&T, with the company sending out notifications constantly asking customers to sign up for various services including the television subscription mentioned above. However, Cyanogen might not allow this and tell the carrier “No, we’re giving users a nice, clean experience!” And while that would be nice, I doubt it’ll happen.
ZTE isn’t really well known outside of China, so by accepting to take part in this team-up between them, Cyanogen, and AT&T, this could become the company’s chance to make themselves known in the States which will help boost sales and popularity altogether.
What is your take? Will all three of these companies team up to bring us a new type of smartphone? Let us know in the comments or via Twitter (@mbeddedmaximum)!
