OnePlus to drop one of the few good Android skins for something worse… ColorOS 12


But according to Oppo, it’s closer to stock Android compared to its older versions. Still pretty sus

Oppo has been developing ColorOS 12 for quite a while now, and ever since the start of the year, they have been teasing how this new version is closer to stock Android, how OnePlus will be using it… wait what?

That’s right, OnePlus is downgrading their Android skin, OxygenOS to ColorOS. ColorOS has been Oppo’s default Android skin since their inception, and now that OnePlus has once again absorbed itself into Oppo, it should be no surprise that the company will use one of Oppo’s assets. They decided to go for the worst asset Oppo has in store yet.

OnePlus has once again merged with Oppo. They were independent from them already, and now the company wants to go back to its parent. OnePlus phones are usually rebranded and improved Oppo ones, always has been since they started.

A month later after said merger announcement, OnePlus announced that their Android skin, OxygenOS will share a codebase with ColorOS. Before this announcement, Chinese OnePlus phones have already shipped with ColorOS instead of Hydrogen, which seems like a downgrade. Today, OnePlus has announced another big change coming to the company.

Unified and Upgraded Operating System for OnePlus and OPPO Phones

In a forum post, OnePlus and Oppo will merge their Android forks respectively to create a single unified operating system under the ColorOS name, starting with ColorOS 12. We may see the next OnePlus phones be equipped with ColorOS 12 instead of OxygenOS next year. Oh no, this isn’t China-only phones, it will affect all OnePlus phones sold globally.

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OnePlus Product strategy

This new unified operating system does not have a name as of late, but founder of OnePlus Pete Lau assured that the OS will have the spirit of OxygenOS alive and strong. The new operating system will also be customised to cater to OnePlus customers, to improve the user experience. The forum post also showed the company’s product strategy.

The new operating system will come as a major update on compatible OnePlus phones starting August next year, and as mentioned earlier, the next flagship in the series, the OnePlus 10 series, would ship with this new unified OS in mind. Pete Lau said that this OS would also improve the photography experience for OnePlus phones, and the same forum post said that this new unified OS should enjoy the light weight and smooth experience of Oxygen while also keeping the same feature-rich experience of ColorOS.

Source: OnePlus