OxygenOS, the Next Chapter for OnePlus
The ROM made in-house by OnePlus has a name, but what else does it mean?
Post AMA
The AMA has come and gone. If you were following along, you saw that most of the answers were pretty ambigious. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. OnePlus wants to preserve information to keep the hype train rolling. I did take issue with them flat out ignoring my first question, though. They partially answered it in another thread, saying they would not have an OTA and you would have to flash it yourself. But I know a lot of users who might not feel comfortable flashing a ROM by themselves. This will definitely leave them out to dry and that bothers me.
Here’s the rundown of the questions I asked, and the answers I received:
There you have it. If OnePlus does not come out with an offical “Here Is How To Go From CyanogenMod 11 to OxygenOS Guide”, I will.
February 12th Announcement
The OnePlus Oxygen OS hype was followed by…. you guessed it, more hype
Here are the thoughts on the announcement today:
They announced a team of people in charge of OxygenOS. I wonder if ROM teams have a salary cap? Do they get jerseys?
Jokes aside, they have some good things going for them at this point. The have some Paranoid Android Devs on their team. In my usage, Paranoid is one of the most comprehensive, beautiful, and functional ROMS available. There’s some talent there.
They want their ROM to be streamlined and unified with the OnePlus One hardware. If the device runs as well as a Nexus device or an iOS device, I’ll be immensely pleased. Devices that have software built around them are normally quite fantastic. Like the Nexus 5 and Kit Kat. While Kit Kat rolled out to tons of devices, it felt so right on the Nexus 5 because they designed the Nexus 5 to run amazingly on Kit Kat.
They talk about the design of the logo in the post. You can tell they’re really leaning into the whole “hype hype hype” machine. There really isn’t that much more to go on at this point. OnePlus is really talented at creating abundant hype. I believe they’re being smart about this. They’re revealing this in layers due to the ROM still being in testing. OnePlus is controlling the conversation while peeling back information in layers. It’s a pretty smart system, I think they are growing up and learning.
They will be doing an AMA on Reddit later today on r/Android. Be sure to let me know if you want me to ask them any questions
My initial impressions of the first announcement are right below the break, be sure to check those out if you haven’t
OxygenOS
That’s a pretty catchy name, right? That’s the name of the new, in-house ROM by OnePlus. Largely due to the drama between MicroMax, Cyanogen, and OnePlus.
We’ll know more February 12th, but until then, I have some thoughts.
-There is absolutely no way it could be an Over The Air update. In the Custom ROM world, you cannot change brands of ROM without fully wiping the device. For instance, if you want to change from Stock Android on a Nexus device and flash CyanogenMod, you must factory reset your device. If you want to change back, the story remains the same.
This is going to cause a lot of issues for the less tech savvy user. While I do recognize the OnePlus community is more technically adept than most, I strongly disagree that users should have to go through this process for the most recent experience.
-The initial alpha build was a little barren(obviously). I wonder about the features that will set OxygenOS apart. How heavily skinned will it be?
-A big allure of the OnePlus One was CyanogenMod. There were so many great features about the OnePlus One that were made possible by CyanogenMod 11S. What magic can OnePlus bring into their home baked software?
-CyanogenMod has promised that the OnePlus One will be supported for two years. In a sense, this ROM push is slightly needless at face value. But OnePlus is currently hard at work on the OnePlus Two. The OnePlus One running OxygenOS will be a huge beta test for them. An opportunity to fix bugs, get feedback, and improve the overall experience. I believe that OxygenOS is more focused on preparing for the OnePlus Two, rather than supporting the OnePlus One.
-I really like the name “OxygenOS”, but that’s just me.
There are a lot of questions up in the air about the OnePlus One and OxygenOS. OnePlus will share more with us soon.
As soon as I can get my hands on a build of OxygenOS, I will run it through super scientific daily use testing. Until then, we can only speculate, or read my other work on the OnePlus One. Which is right here:
