OnePlus One will continue to receive Cyanogen OTA updates in India

OnePlus has certainly had a difficult time selling its flagship One handset in India over the past few months. If you can recall back to October, Cyanogen made an exclusive agreement with Micromax, preventing any other company from selling Cyanogen-powered devices in India, including OnePlus. Cyanogen had a global licensing deal with OnePlus, but the Micromax deal took precedence over it. Then in December, the ban was lifted, and OnePlus was, once again, able to sell the One in India.

It looks like all legal troubles between these companies have finally subsided, because today, OnePlus announced that OnePlus One owners in India who are running Cyanogen OS will continue to receive OTA updates from here on out. The company explains:

…we are happy to confirm today that all legal proceedings have been resolved and the cases have been withdrawn through mutual consent. We hate donning suits and ties anyways. To make things sweeter, we would like to re-assure our customers and fans in India that our flagship phone, the “OnePlus One” will continue to receive OTA updates from Cyanogen in-line with our users in markets around the world.

OnePlus has also recently created its own Android-based ROM, OxygenOS. The OS replacement provides a stable, customizable experience for users looking for an alternative to Cyanogen.

OnePlus One touchscreen issues still remain for some, fix said to be on its way

The OnePlus One debuted last year with the motto “Never Settle”, promising an experience that would stand above the competition at an aggressive price. While they lived up to delivering a solidly spec’d handset with a killer price tag, it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for the company, or its consumers. OnePlus has come under heavy fire in the past for its marketing, its invite system, its customer service, and its quality assurance. In particular, there have been many reports going back as far as last year about potential issues with the touchscreen.

When the reports of touchscreen issues first originated, OnePlus investigated the issue and said they were relatively confident that the issue did not have to do with hardware. Through their tests, they concluded a software solution would do the trick. And yet here we are today, with a number of users still facing touchscreen issues.

Here we are today, with a number of OnePlus One users still facing touchscreen issues.

While OnePlus did offer up a software fix back in February, unfortunately it didn’t resolve the issue for everyone. For what is it worth, OnePlus says they are well aware of the lingering issues and are working with Synaptics to release a final firmware fix that will address any remaining touchscreen issues. There is no exact word on when that will hit, however.

Considering the fact that software didn’t fully fix the problem last time, it’s hard not to be a little skeptical about whether or not a final firmware fix will make any real difference. Many of the users still reporting issues with the touchscreen believe it is an issue of hardware, not software, and that it supposedly has to do with a faulty design in the grounding of the device. Regardless of what the root issue is, we hope that OnePlus eventually finds a way to address it for both the sake of users and for the company’s reputation.

Are you a OnePlus One user, if so, do you have touchscreen issues? Let us know about them in the comments below.

Thanks to Dietrich and others that brought this to our attention!

OnePlus is testing the waters for $400 OnePlus 2 price tag

We already knew that the OnePlus 2 would have a different price than the OnePlus One, which starts at $299. But just how different? Well, it looks like OnePlus wants to know how you feel about a price tag of around $400.

CEO Pete Lau took to Weibo to poll OnePlus fans about what the right price would be for OnePlus 2 if it were equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor. When someone said RMB 2500 (the equivalent of $402), Lau simply said he finds the price “reasonable.”

So far, nothing conclusive, right? Maybe Lau was simply voicing an offhanded opinion and we’re reading too much into it. Yes, except OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei said the exact same thing on Twitter.

We think it’s safe to say that it’s not a coincidence when OnePlus’ two top men are – seemingly – casually pointing to the same price point for the OnePlus 2.

To wrap up, what do we know about OnePlus’ next device so far? We know it’s coming in Q3 (July-September); it will run Oxygen OS, instead of Cyanogen OS; it will be powered by a Snapdragon 810 processor; will probably cost around $400; it will be available through an invite system; and, it won’t be the only OnePlus phone coming out this year.

So, let’s give OnePlus some more insight, shall we? How do you feel about a potential $400 price tag for the OnePlus 2?

Cyanogen OS 12 rollout resumed, new build includes bug fixes and “Ok, OnePlus” hotword

Reports are coming in that Cyanogen and OnePlus have resumed the rollout of the Cyanogen 12 OTA (Lollipop) for the OnePlus One.

Following more than a few delays, the OnePlus One began receiving its much-anticipated update to Lollipop last week. However, by Monday this week, the rollout of the update was halted, ostensibly to add a new feature to the firmware, detection of the “Okay, OnePlus” hotword. Many have doubted the sanity of stopping a long-delayed rollout just to add a small new feature, and it seems that the doubters were right.

According to Cyanogen’s Steve Kondik, commenting on the OnePlus forums, the actual reason for the pause was to fix some serious bugs:

“The reasons why we stopped the initial rollout are because of a problem updating encrypted devices from 11 to 12, and a couple of bugs that we felt were critical enough to fix before continuing (mms/telephony/themes). We also had an error in our production build environment that broke voice wakeup.”

Apparently, said bugs have been fixed now, and the rollout can now resume; users who already received the initial CM 12 build (YNG1TAS0YL) will receive a small OTA for the aforementioned bugs. Users still on CM 11 will soon receive a preparatory update of about 8MB that’s mandatory for encrypted devices, followed immediately by the full CM 12 update (YNG1TAS17L).

As usual, the OTA file for the CM 12 (YNG1TAS17L) update is available for download and manual installation. You can get it from here and flash it for yourself, provided you’re on the latest version of CM11.

As for the “Okay, OnePlus” feature, once you get the update, you can activate it from Settings>Language and Input>Voice Wakeup.

OnePlus One is available without invites forever, OnePlus Two will be released in Q3 2015

April 20th has come and gone and we don’t have a new OnePlus device. In fact, there wasn’t even an event, only OnePlus letting everyone know that the OnePlus One is available without invites forever. Now, that’s actually pretty good news, but it’s not quite the OnePlus Two (and OnePlus One Lite) that we were lead to believe would appear today. That said the OnePlus Two did get a mention by OnePlus, getting a Q3 2015 released date by the Chinese manufacturer, which is all well and good except for one minor detail – it will be available only with the invite system.

For those who are wondering what’s the big deal about this invite system, OnePlus launched its maiden device, the OnePlus One, almost exactly one year ago. However, unlike most devices which become available at retailers and carriers, the OnePlus One was only available through an invite system, one where only invitees could invite more people. Depending on who you ask, the system had its pros and cons, and OnePlus claimed it was to help control risk and control its inventory. Removing this for the OnePlus One means that you’ll be able to buy one of 2014’s best value smartphones whenever takes your fancy, but those waiting for its follow-up better start making lots of friends.

What do you think about the removal of the invite system for the OnePlus One? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: OnePlus via Droid-life

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