Official: OnePlus smartphones to keep OxygenOS despite Oppo merger
It's been about five months since OnePlus and Oppo announced they had merged their R&D (research and development) hardware teams. On top of that, just the other day, the news broke that OnePlus will "further integrate" with Oppo.
While merging their hardware teams was a logical and unsurprising step, we were left without much clarity about their plans for the software on OnePlus smartphones. Until now!
OnePlus' CEO Pete Lau took to the company's official forum to assure everyone the merging is basically due to the higher efficiency and effectiveness that the two companies managed to achieve after the first step of integration.
In response to a comment made by a user on the OnePlus forum, Lau promised that OxygenOS would remain the operating system for global OnePlus devices outside of China.
While merging their hardware teams was a logical and unsurprising step, we were left without much clarity about their plans for the software on OnePlus smartphones. Until now!
In response to a comment made by a user on the OnePlus forum, Lau promised that OxygenOS would remain the operating system for global OnePlus devices outside of China.
Chinese OnePlus units used to feature HydrogenOS, which was a skinned version of OxygenOS without Google. It was necessary because Chinese customers tend to favor a skinned version of Android over the stock experience. Earlier this year, OnePlus started including Oppo's ColorOS in smartphones sold in China, which will remain unchanged.
As a result of the merging, higher efficiency, and more resources at hand, OnePlus will deliver better hardware and further improved software experience to its users. Not only is OxygenOS here to stay, but it's also said to start receiving more frequent OS updates, which is excellent news for everyone who owns or wants to buy a OnePlus phone!
Lau promises that the Oneplus brand will continue to operate as before (independently), and will continue launching OnePlus products, holding events, and reaching out to its users for valuable feedback.
The fact that OnePlus will stick to OxygenOS is crucial since many of the people who buy OnePlus phones do it because they get this more streamlined version of Android, with relatively quick and frequent OS updates for a non-Pixel device.
Android 12 is expected to be a complete overhaul of Android 11. We are looking forward to seeing OnePlus's twist on it, which is usually very minimal yet functional.
Lau promises that the Oneplus brand will continue to operate as before (independently), and will continue launching OnePlus products, holding events, and reaching out to its users for valuable feedback.
As always, we wanted to let you – our community – know about this directly from us as soon as we could share the news with you. You are a vital part of the OnePlus family, so it's important that we communicate changes like this with you directly. Thank you for supporting us over all these years. We can't do any of this without the OnePlus community.
Never Settle
Pete (Lau)
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