OnePlus holds Reddit AMA; Nougat in works for OP 3 and OP 2, OP X to get Marshmallow next week

OnePlus held a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with the title “September Software Edition”. The AMA lasted well over two hours with the team members responding the questions of Redditors. OnePlus staff Brian, Aaron, Omega, Carl and Bradon responsible for ROM, technical, ROM development, global operations and community and marketing respectively, took time to answer questions related to OnePlus software and upcoming plans.

Doing an AMA about OxygenOS on /r/Android right now, come join us! ✌️ https://t.co/NFNsvzf7Bd

— Carl Pei (@getpeid) September 27, 2016

The company announced that the Marshmallow update for OnePlus X would start rollout next week. The OnePlus Camera team was still discussing the possibility and port the Stock camera experience to the community to improve the camera experience in custom ROMs for OnePlus 3. Carl, the co-founder of the company, clarified that OnePlus would not be releasing the unprotected source code for the camera/hal sources. Hal is hardware abstraction layer which helps proper implementation of software. Carl also revealed that the company would not be releasing a 5-inch device on the hardware side because “It’s too hard to fit a big enough battery into a 5” device." Carl went into detail on explaining the cropped tempered glass screen protectors and clarified that Dash Charge is technology is safe because of 5 levels of security checks in addition to the less time spent in charging. He explained that the OnePlus team takes quality and feedback seriously, and the feedback collection is not limited to the forums. The company monitors customer support, Reddit, emails and other social media platforms in addition to forums to collect the feedback. After the collection, there are weekly meetings to discuss the issues, and if the problem is significant enough then the company blocks the software rollout and hardware shipment till the issue is resolved. Bradon explained that the company is working on some major overhaul to make the bug reporting experience better for consumers. The company detailed on merging OxygenOS and HydrogenOS to increase the rollout of software updates. They have combined OxygenOS and HydrogenOS on Android level in addition to the existing common code base on framework and kernel level. The company has kept the application layer as separate to deliver the global users with Oxygen experience and Hydrogen experience to the users in China. The company clarified that the experience would retain Stock like experience and the final update will carry Oxygen branding. Carl announced that the next community build for OnePlus 3 will be arriving this week and that the company is adopting a “ show, don’t tell strategy”. He emphasised on the fact that there is no fixed number of Community builds before the final release and everything works on the bugs in the software. Carl explained that the company has no plan for OnePlus smartwatch. On being asked about going back to Cyanogen for software with OnePlus 4, he told that it is better for a company to have complete control on hardware as well as software to provide optimal user experience. Brian, the head of ROM product hinted that the company has been working on Nougat update for OnePlus 3 in a closed beta group as well as a separate internal testing group. Both these test groups are different from the community build. The company, however, refused to commit to a fixed timeline for the rollout. OnePlus confirmed that OnePlus 2 would receive Android Nougat 7.0 while confirming that the update will first arrive as a community build for customer feedback. One surprising thing that the company talked about was the lack of focus on cheap pricing for the company. Bradon, head of community and marketing explained that the company never focused on the pricing while deciding the features of the product and the competitive pricing was only possible because of the streamlined operations by the company.