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In a blog post today, the CyanogenMod team revealed today that nightly builds of CM12.1, which will be based on Android 5.1, is expected to start rolling out after a week or so. The team is currently cleaning up their codebase after merging the latest AOSP release of Android 5.1 after which the nightlies will start rolling out.
The team has also highlighted some of the changes that they have made in CM12 and CM12.1 to adhere to the Material Design guidelines of Google. The CM Messaging app, for example, now comes with a floating action button (FAB) and rounded circular avatars for contacts. Additionally,, the app now works with Android Wear — allowing users to view and reply to text messages from their smartwatch itself.
Other system apps in CyanogenMod like FM Radio, AOSP Browser and others have also received a similar UI revamp. The CyanogenMod File Manager has also received a Material UI overhaul and has gained some new features like ZIP/RAR files and secure storage support. However, the UX of the app is still not up to the mark, and the CyanogenMod team is taking inputs from users to further improve it.
Lastly, the team had to remove unified builds for multiple variants of a single device due to upgrade issues. The unified builds led to issues with sensors and NFC because of the handsets running different version of Android, which ultimately led to the unified builds being of poor quality.
[Via CyanogenMod]
