For those CyanogenMod fans out there who were wondering if and when you would get to taste the delicious ice cream sandwich on your android devices, well some news was just shed via a twitter post from @cyanogen. In a Twitter post published on Tuesday, cyanogen confirmed they had begun working on CM9, and should be released sometime in January.   Since Google is holding the source code for Honeycomb tight, looks like for now the Mod Squad will be skipping CM8 and moving straight into CM9.

Source: @cyanogen via Twitter

The big news just keeps on coming, first Google buys Motorola and now Samsung has officially hired the creator of CyangenMod to their ranks. It was not too long ago Samsung pronounced their support for developers by giving away free Samsung Galaxy S2 phones to CyanogenMod developers to help support further Android development on Samsung phones.  And from the looks of it, Samsung is impressed with Cyanogen’s work.

Now with this comes a lot of questions to mind, like will other devices still be supported or will Cyanogen still continue developing CyanogenMod to begin with? Well fret not, according to Cyanogen’s Facebook page, he has gone out to reassure his users that CM will remain his side project and will not be affiliated with his new employer.

From the looks of things, many are welcoming Samsung’s support of the community. But I would like to add a possibility for something more then what it looks. Before I do, I want to make clear on my stance with Google buying out Motorola. I think that it is a positive thing and I do not think Google will use Motorola to compete with their OEMs as most of their money is made off Adsense, the profit margins on hardware is hardly worth Google endangering their bread and butter.

What does this have to do with all this? Well according to Cyanogen, his take on CyanogenMod is not that of another ROM but a fork of Android, aka another Android distribution similar to how Cent OS is to Red Hat (for those familiar with Linux). So could it possibly be that Samsung is trying to fork Android and distance itself from reliance on Google? Samsung has already attempted to stop using Google for their GPS services and swap to SkyHook only to be blocked by Google at the last minute. This sudden change caused a lot of problems for samsung’s GPS in the original Samsung Galaxy S and a lot of bad press.

By putting Cyanogen on a team to fork Android, it can give a lot of power to Samsung who can then make Android work better with their hardware and enjoy the benefits iOS enjoys by having full control of both software and hardware. Samsung is already famous for adding CPU optimization to their TouchWiz framework. (not to be confused with TouchWiz Launcher)  And with this, Samsung also have better control of pushing out timely updates.

And in the future, in an unlikely event Google decides to take more control over Android, Samsung can continue development on their own.

Again, I have no proof, this is merely a speculation on my part with the limited amount of information available. What do you think?

Are you among the crowd who loves using Android but never could figure out why you can’t take screenshots? Most geeks know that your phone has to be rooted if you run Android 2.2 or less and want to take screenshots. That’s why some of you aren’t able to do so. We have good news though! Coming with Android 2.3.3 is the ability to take screenshots without rooting your device. How’s that sound?

Androinica.com happened to come up on a tweet conversation between Cyanogen and phone guru Paul O’Brian, creator of the MoDaCo forum. Take a look at the tweet posted below:

Now all we can do is wait for everyone to have access to Android 2.3.3 and take advantage of screenshots. Do you use any screenshot applications now? Or are you a user who doesn’t want to root your device and would love to have access to screenshot applications in the future? Let us know your thoughts and opinions. Thanks!

Source: Androinica

We normally don’t post about ROMs on the front page, but since this is one of the most popular Android ROMs out there and is available on almost every Android phone, we thought it might be worth mentioning. CyanogenMod 6 is based on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and is now out of beta and is considered stable. While there’s many tweaks, it is known for its stock Android feel.

As with any other Android ROM, you’ll need both root and bootloader access to be able to flash it. You can use the free ROM Manager app from the Android Market to see if its available on your device, or check out the CyanogenMod forums here.

They are also working on a ROM for the Samsung Galaxy S phones (Epic, Captivate, Vibrant, etc), which should be available with v6.1.

Source: AndroidCentral & CyanogenMod.com