OnePlus continues being awesome; Oxygen OS 3.2.1 update and official TWRP support

OnePlus has started the roll out for Oxygen OS 3.2.1 after fixing the issues with the last update. The last update, Oxygen OS 3.2.0 was made in response to the issues pointed out by reviews and users on the internet. These problems ranged from not using the entire 6GB RAM to the inaccuracy of the display as noted by Anandtech in their review. Oxygen 3.2.0 addressed most of the issues including improved RAM management, GPS performance, the introduction of sRGB display profile.  The rollback did not stop people from downloading the full ROM or the incremental update and flash it. I grabbed the signed ROM and flashed it through the unofficial custom recovery TWRP and experienced a significant bump in battery life despite very heavy usage. Flashing the signed ROM is only essential for people with root access to the phone. Root access enables the user to have greater control over the operating system of the phone including tweaking the functioning.You can find the full Oxygen OS 3.2.1 ROM You can find the full Oxygen OS 3.2.1 ROM here provided on the OnePlus forums. The post includes links to all other full ROMs and incremental updates. The latest update is a 1.2 GB sized file and will enable you to upgrade without any data loss. The steps vary for users with and without root access as the process is much simpler for users without root access. A detailed guide has been provided for users to flash the latest ROM along with steps to unlock the bootloader, install TWRP and achieve root access on the OnePlus forums. In addition, flashing and putting custom recoveries should only be attempted if you know what you are doing, else it may lead to a bricked device. The screen on time did not increase drastically, but the improvement was significant. The battery backup on single charge went from 4.5-5 hours to 6.5-7 hours, and this was possible because of the better optimised idle time.  The update was initially rolled out in Germany as a staged rollout. Immediately after people started reporting problems during the upgrade including loss of SIM connectivity. The problem, even though limited to a small number of people with SIP configuration on their phones, was enough for the roll back . Fast forward two days later and the company has started the rollout of Oxygen OS 3.2.1. This update does not include many changes apart from fixing the SIM issue faced by users for the ones upgrading from Oxygen OS 3.2.0, but it should be significant for users in India who are still on Oxygen OS 3.1.2. The update for users coming from OxygenOS 3.1.2 will be 396MB in size while for users coming from 3.2.0 it will be mere 15MB. Interestingly the latest update increases the AnTuTu score of the phone by putting it back on the top with the score of 140288 as reported by Slashgear. The AnTuTu score varies from device to device depending on the amount of memory being used and apps in the background. I noticed this improvement after OnePlus 3 was temporarily being dethroned by vivo Xplay5 Elite in AnTuTu rankings four days after buying the device.  OnePlus has time and again talked about improving the issues that people were complaining about with previous two devices. The company nailed it in its third attempt with the hardware as mentioned in our review. But people were still skeptical about the software side of OnePlus 3 considering OnePlus 2 got Marshmallow this June, a full eight months after Marshmallow was announced while OnePlus X is still on Lollipop. The company has kept its promise of improving with the latest flagship. The improvements are noticeable with the first CM 13.1 unofficial build available even before the devices reached users. OnePlus has also promised to release the dash charge binaries for custom ROMs by July end. The developer support got a boost yesterday when TWRP team announced official support for the custom recovery. TWRP recovery enables users who continuously tweak and tinker with the device to create a full backup for apps and data called NAND (nandroid) backup. TWRP has additional features of installing apps and operating system updates in addition to installing a new Operating system or the existing one (dirty flashing). It provides features of restoring the NAND backups along with stock recovery features of wiping the device or cache and Dalvik cache for troubleshooting.  After using OnePlus One for a long time and deciding on upgrading to OnePlus 3, the company seems to have improved a lot. The regular posts by OnePlus staff on OnePlus forums providing regular updates has kept the community informed. Additionally, the introduction of a closed Beta testing program within two weeks of the release of the flagship for improvements points out at the lessons learnt by the company.