14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like AT&T wants to break Google’s monopoly over Android ecosystem, at least in the United States. The number 2 US mobile operator has been working with Cyanogen on a device that will offer an alternative version of Android.
According to The Information's Amir Efrati, ZTE is the company chosen by Cyanogen and AT&T to build the first smartphone that will offer a completely different Android experience.
Naturally, if AT&T builds this phone along with ZTE, it will probably want to add some bloatware, which wouldn’t be against Cyanogen’s policy.
However, it’s a bit unclear whether or not ZTE will score this deal with AT&T and Cyanogen since the US government imposed trade sanctions on the company.
An unnamed source claims that the upcoming Cyanogen smartphone will be launched as an experiment that will allow AT&T to push its own DirecTV, as well as video subscription services and offer them a larger exposure to mobile consumers than the existing version of Android or Apple iOS allow at the moment.
AT&T wants to increase revenues from its own mobile services
AT&T plans to boost its revenue from consumer services on mobile devices, something that’s been pretty hard for carriers in the United States in the last couple of years.
As some of you might know, Cyanogen already allows carriers and application developers to integrate their services with its alternative form of Android, something that Google’s mobile operating system doesn’t allow.
Microsoft is among the first companies that integrated some of its apps and services like Skype and Cortana into Cyanogen.
Even if Cyanogen doesn’t usually put too many apps inside its OS, Google’s Search and Play store features do not miss from the mobile platform since the company knows most users absolutely need these services.
If AT&T launches a Cyanogen-powered smartphone built by ZTE or another handset maker in the next couple of months, it would be the first carrier in the US to offer such a device.