[Meizu MX] Meizuman:
We are going to introduce several important members of Flyme. And the first issue of this series would be----- face to face Q&A with the System Development Manager --- Pony Chou.

Introduction:

Pony Chou, joined Meizu in 2007, is one of the key developers of Flyme. After several years of hardworking and brilliant performance, he became the Technical Director of Flyme in 2013. And this year, after a major department structure adjustment inside Flyme, he is appointed as the general manager of Flyme System Development.

(FF would be Flyme Forum)

FF: Hi Pony, thank you for your time to do this interview. I think most of our forum users are not that familiar with your work, can you briefly describe your work so that they can know a little more?

Pony: OK. Greetings to all Flyme Forum users. As you can see now I am the general manager of Flyme System Development, which means my main job is to make Flyme a better system, to lead the team --- actually we have several teams for different system modules --- to build a system that is more smooth, stable and power-saving.

FF: That sounds an incredibly complicated job. What part did you work on, when you first join Meizu?

Pony: Well, like everybody else, I started with the very basic work, coding, solving bugs... When I joined the project of Flyme, I was in charge of the multi-media part, like music, video, etc. And after 2 years I was shifted to do the system frameworks and apps, and after that I was appointed to supervise this whole Flyme project.

FF: As Flyme's technical director?

Pony: Yes.

FF: So, I got a few questions about Flyme that are concerned by our forum users. The first one would be when Flyme 5 is going to rollout Android 6?

Pony: The new models which will be released in 2016 will all built on Androd 6.

FF: And what about those models before 2016? Will Flyme provide an update?

Pony: I think for previous models, the main task for Flyme is to keep the firmware as stable and smooth as possible. Android 6 has not much modifications or highlights in functions. Some functions sucn as permission control, fingerprint, fast charge, etc are actually already acheived on Flyme 5. If we cannot upgrade to Android 6, we'll do our best to add more features to Flyme to compensate that.

FF: That's really exciting. Then when would Flyme 5 be available for models other than MX5 and PRO 5?

Pony: We actually have done it in Chinese mainland, but for global version, we need to do more testing for compatibility and performance. So please feel assured because Flyme 5 WILL be available for every device after MX4.

FF: So MX4 and MX4 Pro are also getting Flyme 5?

Pony: Yes. It might take longer time, but it will be available for these two models.

FF: As long as we are here, I think many users would have the same confusion as mine: why global version is always way too behind the Chinese version?

Pony: Flyme was not that internationalized before, but as we are getting more and more users around the globe, we have to consider more about users outside China. Thus for every version that is going to be released, we have to test the compatibility first. We got many feedbacks that some apps are not working properly on Flyme, that's the issue we're going to fix here. And also, we need time to translate the system languages.

FF: So will it still be several months gap between A and G versions?

Pony: There will be, but much closer. This year we're trying to release G version only 1 month later than A version.

FF: That's great. Our users will be delighted.

FF: There is another issue related to upgrading. What is the updating cycle for every device model?

Pony: You mean Flyme monthly or weekly firmware upgrading?

FF: No I mean after a model is released, how long will Flyme provide upgrade for each model?

Pony: Well, it is safe to say that we guarantee the updating for each model will at least last 24 months.

FF: So the models get upgrades in at least 2 years. What about the open source issue of Flyme? A lot of users were asking about that, will Flyme be open-sourced?

Pony: The kernel code will be released, but the Flyme part will not be open-sourced. We are an OS with system-level customization, it's not likely to open the source code.

FF: Flyme did adaptations for other brands, will we be doing that in the future?

Pony: Yes, on some popular devices such as Samsung, OnePlus, Mi or other brands.

FF: About the Flyme versions, what's the differences between A and G version, or IN version?

Pony: The system features are basically the same. What's different is the content provided in each version. Right now we have few multi-media content in G or IN version, but we are now contacting international content providers, try to bring more services to our users.

FF: Then compare to other smartphone operating systems, what do you think is the highlight of Flyme?

Pony: The first impression of most users is that Flyme is very light colored, and the visual design is nicer than most of the other operating systems. And for the perfomance, Flyme, especially Flyme 5 is really smooth and some users joked that it's so smooth it does not resemble any previous Meizu or Flyme product. And the features are easy to grasp, users can learn it instantly because the interactions are also very simple but effective.

FF: Thanks for your patient answers, one more, we know that Meizu will be having a launch event in India around April, will we be expecting your attendance?

Pony: I might. Maybe I can be a mysterious guest among all the fans.

FF: Great! Can you say something to our forum users?

Pony: Thanks for continually contributing to this forum and to Flyme. We'll listen to you, and cherish every feedback and suggestion. Flyme will be better! Thank you.

FF: Thank you, Pony.

Source: FlymeOS Forum