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OnePlus One Android Lollipop Update “Alpha” Now Available
Did you manage to score a OnePlus One in 2014? Good news if you did: Android Lollipop is HERE
After a very impressive 2014 OnePlus has made quite a few alterations to how it does business but one of the most pertinent thing as of right now is the growing distance between itself and its initial software launch partner, Cyanogen. Android Lollipop is coming too – but it’s not a Cyanogen build.
No, OnePlus has been busy putting together its own software development team and the company took to its official blog recently to share the first “Alpha” build of Android Lollipop for the OnePlus One. This isn’t the FINAL build, however, but in the interest of being cool OnePlus is letting users download the software right now.
Android Police reports that OnePlus has formed its own team of software engineer, and has already deployed an alpha build of Android 5.0 Lollipop that’s very close to stock AOSP.
The new software will apparently be very similar to what you get on Google’s Nexus 6, meaning very little in the way of custom skins and bloatware, as noted below in an extract from the blog post.
“As we look towards the official ROM release in the near future, we will keep to our promise and deliver an experience that is customizable, yet bloat-free with stock-Android-like simplicity by default; we wouldn’t ask you to settle for anything less. In the meantime, we thought you’d appreciate an early community preview and a progress report,” wrote OnePlus.
HOWEVER, it is definitely worth noting this isn’t a final build of the software and there are quite a few confirmed bugs inside the platform. OnePlus outlined the following:
- Data roaming is on by default. Make sure to turn if off to avoid potential charges.
- As always, flashing a custom ROM incurs the risk of bricking your phone. Make sure you know what you’re doing and backup everything.
- Camera and video may be unstable. This build supports 4k video, however quality may be low as we are still fine-tuning the camera.
- Capacitive keys do not turn off when you enable software keys.
- Clock crashes periodically.
- If using the new app pinning feature in L, make sure to turn on the software keys first. Otherwise, you will have to reboot your machine.
- On first boot, startup time will be a bit slow. Rest assured we will speed things up in the future.
- Wi-Fi may be unstable.
- This build is not eligible for OTA updates.
OnePlus says the final build of Android Lollipop should be with us VERY soon (which hopefully means before the end of the month).
Richard Goodwin
14:03, 5 Jan 2015