Cyanogen rolls out new Microsoft mods for OEMs and service providers

Microsoft and Cyanogen are expanding their existing partnership by introducing new mods that phone makers and service providers can build into their systems.

Announced at Mobile World Congress (MWC) on February 22, Cyanogen's new MOD platform features a number of Microsoft-specific mods, including Skype, Cortana, Hyperlapse, OneNote and Truecaller mods. The new MOD platform will begin rolling out next month on devices with Cyanogen OS 13.0 or greater.

Microsoft and Android OS vendor Cyanogen announced last April that the pair were partnering to integrate Microsoft apps and services with Cyanogen. At that time, the pair said Cyanogen would integrate and distribute various Microsoft consumer productivity, messaging and cloud apps and services with the Cyanogen Open OS platform.

Via Cyanogen's MOD platform, developers like Microsoft can take advantage of the core platform programming interfaces within the Cyanogen OS. Users can install the various mods, like the Skype mod, directly into their dialer to add VoIP calling functionality.

Among the new mods that will be available to OEMs and mobile-network operators via the Cyanogen MOD Ready program, in addition to the Skype mod, are a Microsoft Hyperlapse mod for stabilized first-person videos; a OneNote mod for dialer, browser, emmail and calendar note taking; a TrueCaller mod for spam ID and blocking; social lockscreen mods; and a Cortana mod to handle tasks like voice-activated selfies, according to Cyanogen's announcement.

As AndroidPolice.com (where I first saw mention of Cyanogen's MWC announcement) notes, today's Cyanogen MOD program has nothing to do with the CyanogenMod Custom ROM.