OxygenOS 15 dropped parallel apps and the work profile partition without warning, and the response from the community was immediate. Users reported losing functionality they relied on daily, and the replies from OnePlus amounted to "trust us, it's better now." That answer has never been good enough from any OEM and it shouldn't start here.
Custom ROM development on OnePlus hardware has gotten harder with each generation as the boot chain locks down further. The argument that locked bootloaders protect users from security threats falls apart when you notice that same threat model permits carrier bloatware to persist untouched. Nobody protecting you, just limiting what you can do with your own hardware.
The "never settle" slogan feels like a punchline now. Each release removes something instead of adding it. Screen-off gestures vanish. The shelf gets rebranded and buried. The bootloader remains locked on carrier variants despite years of community requests. At some point the pattern stops being coincidence.
OnePlus is not unique in this. Most Android OEMs treat customization as a feature to phase out rather than a reason people buy their hardware. The difference is that OnePlus built its early reputation on being different, which makes the retreat more visible and the disappointment more acute. When a company starts from a position of claimed openness, closing down hurts more than if it never opened at all.
Support windows vary wildly across carrier and unlocked variants of the same device. Users who bought an unlocked OnePlus 12 expecting uniform updates got a different experience depending on where they purchased it. That fragmentation punishes people for trying to make an informed purchase. When did buying a phone require reading the fine print on your carrier's update agreement?
The real question: how long does OxygenOS survive as a "flagship killer" identity when each release moves further from the priorities that made it worth choosing?
#TechLiberation #FOSS #Privacy #Android #OxygenOS
I never felt like OnePlus deserved "Never settle." It seemed like there was always a concession. Just like "Don't be evil" with Google. It's a slogan. It's not something they live by.
IMO no phone manufacturer ever promised an update window and then delivered on it. What makes Apple so different is not that they promised 5-7 years of updates. They never actually promised any updates. Apple treats the iPhone like the Mac. They support it until they can't, though we might not always agree with them as to when they need to stop. Still, they don't care what country you're in or what carrier you're on: everyone is offered the update on the same day. Too many Android OEMs penalise you for living in a country the OEM doesn't like, or being on a better carrier. And they may make up excuses as to why they prioritise some users over others, at the end of the day, the consumer loses, and Apple has always done this better. Not because they're trying to be better about it, but because they just have a better mindset about it.
Apple used to run a stealth campaign (they didn't advertise it) where if you asked Siri, "what is the best iPhone" (or smartphone), it would tell you, "the one you have." Or "the one in your hand," I forget which. The message was subtle but it made sense. Any iPhone was the right iPhone. The only mistake you could really make was not getting enough storage. These days, though, you can plug an external SSD or hard drive, or flash drive, or dock with multiple, right into an iPhone and it just works. People don't realise, iOS isn't really an OS unto itself. It's just another skin of macOS. Steve Jobs wasn't lying when he held up the iPhone and said "this will run OS X." Sure, you can't do a lot of Mac stuff on one, but at the core, it's the same code. Which is also based on UNIX โ macOS/iOS is more alike to Linux/Android than either is to Windows. (Even Windows runs some Linux stuff these days.) But anyway, that's what every Android OEM misses. They need to start treating their phones like computers. No bad options, and they all get updated at the same time.
(Disclosure of bias: Primarily an Apple guy, my main EDC is an iPhone 16 Pro Max. I also have a Galaxy S10, it's a hand-me-down, but it runs, I have it heavily customised, and I love a few things about it more than my iPhone. I have never had a OnePlus phone. I've also used computers running macOS (legitimately, i.e. on a Mac), Windows, and Linux, for over 30 years.)