CyanogenMod, the most popular custom firmware for Android based solely on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), usually serves as a sigh of relief for the plethora of users that otherwise would be stuck on an older Android version owing to the fact that OEMs are not really that keen on releasing updates for older devices. With the release of Android 4.3, a lot of Android users were looking forward to tasting the latest goodies on their device thanks to the famous custom ROM, and CM developers have not disappointed – CyanogenMod 10.2 nightlies have started making appearances on the official channel for a variety of devices, which is based on Android 4.3.
As of this writing, the official nightlies continue to pour in for more and more devices, with the current ones including ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity, Galaxy Nexus, Sony Xperia Z, Samsung Galaxy Note, Xperia Tablet Z, Motorola DROID RAZR (yeah, I was surprised, too), HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S3, Nexus 4, Nexus 10 and a variety of others. The list will continue to grow as more devices are added by their individual branch maintainers.
As with all nightly builds, these CM 10.2 nightlies are also experimental, and may have certain features broken or missing. Their stability is questionable as well, although keeping the trend in view, it’s likely that bugs will be squashed on a daily basis. Still, if you want to get a taste of a working Android 4.3 experience on your supported Android device, you may want to give it a shot. For novice users, we’ll be compiling a guide on installing these nightly builds soon.
Alongside the CM 10.2 builds, the official Google Apps package has also been updated to include support for Android 4.3. According to an official post from CyanogenMod, any GApps package for Android 4.2 will not work for these builds, so if you plan on experimenting with the latest release, make sure you update the corresponding Google Apps as well. Furthermore, CWM Recovery has also been updated to include support for the newest build, and they’re being rolled out for all the compatible devices over the course of next 24 hours.
CyanogenMod has always been a reliable and superior method of getting a vanilla Android experience on pretty much any device, and the release of nightly builds for such a good number of devices only indicates that it’s here to stay and grow. If you’re a fan of AOSP and are dying to get your hands on Android 4.3, you might give it a try yourself. Do let us know how your experience went, though.
If you’re feeling adventurous enough, you can grab the CM 10.2 ROM for your device from: get.cm
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