OxygenOS gets extended 4-year update schedule, but there’s a catch

Just about every major smartphone brand has announced their plans to extend their update schedules, and now we have OnePlus. OnePlus will support the OnePlus 8 series and newer devices for up to four years, but there’s a catch that might not sit as well with OnePlus users.

OxygenOS to be ColorOS with OnePlus’ flavor?

To enable the extended support, OnePlus will be harnessing OPPO’s resources. OPPO has already announced their four-year long support for their flagships, so I guess this isn’t particularly surprising. The main issue might be that the codebase of OxygenOS and ColorOS will be integrated, to “improve efficiency and standardize the software experience”.

We aren’t sure whether “standardize the software experience” will mean ColorOS will look more like OxygenOS, or vice versa. If it’s the former, this codebase merging should benefit OPPO users the most, as ColorOS isn’t nearly as streamlined as OxygenOS. Or maybe it will mean OxygenOS users will have to deal with a more bloated user experience.

The announcement seems to hint that OnePlus devices will not run ColorOS yet and still retain OxygenOS, but since it will share most of the underpinnings of ColorOS anyway, does it really matter? Speaking of which, ColorOS 12 will reportedly borrow heavily from HydrogenOS, so we might see the line between ColorOS and OxygenOS blur significantly anyway, for better or worse. But on the bright side, there’s going to be longer support for their devices, so that’s nice too:

• Flagship product line (including T / R): The OnePlus 8 series and newer devices will receive 3 major Android updates and 4 years of security updates.
• Nord / Nord CE: The first OnePlus Nord and newer Nord / Nord CE devices will receive 2 major Android updates and 3 years of security updates.
• Nord N series: Starting from N10 and N100, all N series devices will receive 1 major Android update and 3 years of security updates.

The extended support mainly applies to their recent flagships, starting with the OnePlus 8 series, while the older models will still only be getting 2 major Android updates and 3 years of security updates.

Regardless, this merging of ColorOS and OxygenOS’ codebase should be quite a bummer for OnePlus users who loved the brand for its value proposition and superior software experience — the former has long gone, while the latter appears to be on its way out too.

Pokdepinion: What do you think will happen? Will ColorOS look cleaner over time to be more like OxygenOS, or the other way around?