March 2015. The Cyanogen relationship is over. OnePlus has just announced OxygenOS, its own Android-based operating system, ending the partnership with CyanogenMod that defined the OnePlus One’s software identity. The split is happening because it has to: the India legal dispute over Cyanogen’s exclusivity deal with Micromax left OnePlus unable to sell its primary product in its most important emerging market, and a subsequent announcement from Cyanogen about a new partnership with Micromax’s competitor Intex confirmed that Cyanogen is willing to negotiate agreements that actively harm OnePlus’s interests. The relationship is untenable and OnePlus is doing the right thing by ending it.
OxygenOS 1.0 is available today as a replacement for CyanogenMod on international units. The team that built it is small, and the ambitions are correctly calibrated: OxygenOS 1.0 is essentially stock Android with OnePlus’s hardware-specific features and minimal additions. It does not try to compete with Samsung’s feature density. It tries to be the Android that Google would have made if Google were building hardware optimized for enthusiasts rather than for the widest possible audience.
What OxygenOS needs to prove
The CyanogenMod partnership gave OnePlus instant software credibility because CyanogenMod had earned that credibility independently over years of development. OxygenOS has to earn its own credibility from scratch. The questions I am watching: Can the OxygenOS team match CyanogenMod’s update speed? CyanogenMod shipped monthly updates that fixed bugs the community had reported. OnePlus’s own team will need to hit a similar cadence to hold the enthusiast audience that came to the One specifically because of the software. Can the OxygenOS team produce a clean experience that does not creep toward the bloatware and feature density that the community came to OnePlus to escape?
OxygenOS 1.0 is a first version. First versions are not where you evaluate the philosophy; they are where you evaluate whether the team has the right instincts. The right instincts are visible here: stock-adjacent, fast, hardware-feature-aware without being bloated. The first real test comes with OxygenOS 2.0 when the Cyanogen muscle memory fades and the OxygenOS team has to produce something that stands on its own. That version is several months away. We will know more about what OnePlus’s software future looks like when it arrives.
Part of OnePlus: The Complete Story, my full history of OnePlus from founding to the Realme merger.