OnePlus merged OSes due to departure of Oxygen OS developers

OnePlus’ recently announced merger of Oxygen OS and Hydrogen OS follows the departure of Oxygen OS developers, Android Central reports citing anonymous sources. It was not a planned action.

The departed team members are ‘core members’, including the product head for mobile devices, Android Central writes. They are said to have struck a deal to end their employment shortly after the release of the OnePlus 3 phone due to long hours and a shortage of manpower. As a result, the remaining Oxygen OS team members were merged with the Hydrogen OS team. In addition, some of the remaining members have contracts until the end of this year, the site said.

According to Android Central’s sources, friction between the teams was caused by too much focus on the Hydrogen OS intended for the Chinese market, even though there are three times as many users of Oxygen OS. The first result of the merge would be seen in the release of versions 3.5 and 3.5.1 of Oxygen OS, which include several changes to the operating system interface.

Because the person responsible for the stock Android interface of Oxygen OS has also left, it cannot be ruled out that the merged system will undergo more changes, according to Android Central. Unique parts of Oxygen OS, such as the ‘shelf’, are maintained by the remaining operating system team members until their departure. However, in a response to the German site Golem, OnePlus has previously announced that no visual changes will be made to Oxygen OS and that the two operating systems will keep their own style.

The combination of the two operating systems would now have been given the name ‘OnePlus OS’. When asked, the company informed Android Central that the merger of the teams has been made to “increase the speed and efficiency of software updates.” Moreover, maintaining two separate systems would be too much work for such a small company. This keeps OnePlus close to the statement it made when announcing the merger.

Hydrogen OS