After being slapped with infringement of exclusivity in India, OnePlus announced that it will be coming up with its own Android 5.0 Lollipop based ROM for the One smartphones in the country. While the alpha version of the same was launched sometime in December, this week the vendor unleashed the final build and named it OxygenOS.
Notably, the firm held a contest on its official forum calling out for its fans to suggest a name for the build. It is has announced that the winners will be receiving OnePlus Power Banks and One smartphone as rewards.
Following this contest came in an announcement confirming the name of the build as OxygenOS and it reads, "Oxygen is all around us. It’s part of us and everything we do. It creates the water that carves out valleys and moves mountains. By itself, it’s simple and pure—a fundamental building block. But, as a part of something greater, it can do amazing things. Just like us."
OnePlus is developing two different ROMS for One: OxygenOS is for the global market, and H2OS is the moniker in China, the firm’s mainland. Furthermore, OnePlus has noted that it will be sharing more details about the ROM on February 12th.
It has to be noted that OnePlus is suffering exclusivity issues only in India as Cyanogen Inc signed a deal with the native maker Micromax. As per this deal, Micromax will be the only eligible manufacturer to rollout Cyanogen updates and hence, OnePlus One units sold in the country needed an alternative ROM. Otherwise, the global users of OnePlus One can also install the OxygenOS on their devices is they want, but they will have to wait for the official showcasing of the ROM on February 12th.
Apart from letting out the name of the ROM, OnePlus has taken another step. Well, the OnePlus One units that have been shipped recently are sans the Cyanogen logo at the back panel. Notably, the firm has mentioned that it has altered the back covers of the OnePlus One devices to provide a cleaner and more unified look across all regions.
The vendor is not only in the headlines for the announcement of the OxygenOS ROM, but also for the reports that are circulating regarding its next generation smartphone that is allegedly called OnePlus Two. There are rumors that it could be called OnePlus 2, a mere change from text based branding to digit based one.
The sources that churn out details of the upcoming smartphone claim that the device will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor that is the latest one from the chip maker. But, the device appears to be delayed a lot taking its launch to the third quarter of this year due to manufacturing challenges related to the chipset.
The issue is similar to the claims made by Samsung for the choice of in-house Exynos processor only for its flagship Galaxy S6. The vendor came up with a claim that the Snapdragon 810 is subject to overheating.
Notably, OnePlus One was highly successful and was called flagship killer as it came with high end specifications for an affordable pricing. The sequel is expected to arrive with 64-bit computing among other advancements to retain the fame achieved by the yesteryear model. Anyways, we need to wait till the third quarter to know what the vendor has got to rollout off its sleeve.
To be updated...