July 23, 2021. GSMArena today published content from the OnePlus Nord 2 reviewer’s guide that OnePlus had not mentioned in any press material, forum post, or community communication: a line confirming that OxygenOS on the Nord 2 is built on the ColorOS codebase. Not the interface. The codebase. The underlying architecture of the software is now shared with the software that OnePlus’s community has spent years arguing is inferior to OxygenOS. The user-facing skin still says OxygenOS. The code underneath says ColorOS.
Adam Conway posted about it on Twitter an hour ago. Tech media is picking it up. The OnePlus subreddit is reacting. And OnePlus has now confirmed it, through a forum post that frames the codebase unification as a technical improvement that will bring stability and feature richness without changing the OxygenOS experience users value. I do not find this framing convincing.
Why the codebase merger matters before users feel it
The argument that OnePlus is making is that the codebase change will not affect the user experience. That argument is technically defensible today and I suspect it will not be defensible by early 2022. Here is why: once two software products share a codebase, the design decisions in one constrain the design decisions in the other. OxygenOS’s defining qualities, its speed, its update cadence, its minimal feature set, and its responsiveness to community feedback, are not just matters of taste. They are the product of a software team making autonomous decisions about priorities. Once that team is contributing to a shared codebase with the ColorOS team, those decisions become subject to the ColorOS team’s architectural priorities. Those priorities are not the same as the OnePlus community’s priorities. They cannot be: ColorOS is built for a different user in a different market with different expectations.
OnePlus is framing the Nord 2 as a pilot: the codebase change happens here first, the flagships will be evaluated separately. I am treating today as a preview. The Nord 2 shows what OxygenOS built on ColorOS looks like and what it prioritizes. If the flagship devices get the same treatment, the community will feel it in exactly the ways the community has been warning about since June’s integration announcement. I hope the pilot produces data that leads to a different outcome. Right now, I am not optimistic.
Part of OnePlus: The Complete Story, my full history of OnePlus from founding to the Realme merger.