UK smartphone brand Wileyfox had until at the end of 2016 relied on Cyanogen Inc, the now dissolved forked Android development company, to handle its software needs. Its entire smartphone lineup was powered by Cyanogen OS.
Then things happened. Cyanogen announced that it was closing shop. Its community of open source enthusiasts and active contributors to the CyanogenMod project regrouped under the Lineage OS banner while other clients like Chinese device maker OnePlus had long since abandoned it in favour of their own in-house efforts.
Wileyfox had to do something. It promised to do something. And now we have a rough idea on exactly when we can expect to see that something.
According to a Facebook post by its Netherlands arm (translation required), Wileyfox users can expect to get Android 7.1 Nougat in a fortnight or so. Of course, it is users of Wileyfox’s latest smartphones, the Swift 2, who will be getting Android 7.1.1 first before everyone else follows. The Wileyfox Swift and Storm, veterans by smartphone years, will be next in line with the update expected to hit them in about a month. The Spark and Spark + devices, unveiled in June last year, will get it by the end of April.
While the Nougat update will arrive courtesy of Wileyfox, users can expect to retain all the unique Wileyfox-exclusive features available in their existing installations of Cyanogen OS.
Wileyfox had committed to upgrading its entire device lineup to Nougat so this update roadmap is not entirely surprising though it is a bit off. The company had anticipated to start the update process by February and be done by the end of Q1.
Wileyfox trialed its smartphones in Kenya for a while; availing limited quantities of the Storm and Swift in Nairobi but things have gone quiet ever since. Maybe we’ll see the brand back again this year?
