Just last month, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau announced that OnePlus would be further integrating with Oppo. This would effectively make them a sub-brand of Oppo and now the company has also announced that it will be merging OxygenOS, the skin of Android that OnePlus devices use, with Oppo’s ColorOS.
According to the announcement, both companies software will still remain separate and continue to serve their individual regions but will share a common codebase. The individual regions are OxygenOS for OnePlus phones globally and ColorOS on OnePlus devices and Oppo phones in China. OnePlus says that sharing a common codebase will standardise its software experience and streamline the development process for future updates.
The company has also said that this will help them guarantee future updates and better support for Android moving forward. This is something that many manufacturers, including Samsung, have been working on over the last few years. OnePlus says that that the life span for updates will be as follows:
- Flagship phones including the T and R models get three major Android updates and four years of security updates.
- Nord and Nord CE phones get two major Android updates and three years of security updates.
- Nord N phones will get one major Android update and three years of security updates.
Do keep in mind that these commitments are limited to the OnePlus 8 and up only. This is just the next step in whatever is going on between the companies under the BBK Electronics umbrella and it is still unclear how independent OnePlus really is now. Hopefully as long as phones are getting supported, this should not matter.
