OnePlus has announced OxygenOS 15, an Android 15 update that brings new features and other upgrades, and it’s certainly surprisingly smooth.
OxygenOS 15 is heavily based on Oppo’s ColorOS 15 announced last week, with changes in three key areas, starting with a “faster and smoother experience.” Oppo has put a lot of effort into improving animations to make ColorOS, and by extension OxygenOS, feel faster and smoother than ever. One important thing is that we added “parallelism” to the animation. This allows you to start one animation without interrupting the other, even if the other animation is still in progress.
The clear focus of this test, which OnePlus and Oppo use in their examples, is the test made popular by Ice Universe, which we often predict in the mobile field. This test shows users opening and closing the app quickly and observing animations becoming shorter or delayed. “Parallel processing” solves this problem. do This leads to a smoother experience. But realistically, this is a change that almost no one actively notices. This is a change that has the greatest effect when you don’t know about it in the first place, so it defeats the purpose anyway.
There are also design changes due to the system. OxygenOS is still similar to ColorOS, but with a little more iOS influence throughout the system.
The most notable change is in the notification tray, where quick settings and notifications have been split. This is optional, and right after setup your OnePlus 12 will show a pop-up asking you which style you prefer. The experience of using split layouts isn’t too bad. Notifications can be dismissed by swiping in either direction, and swiping on a blank space allows users to jump between the two halves. Still, it’s not as quick or intuitive as the existing behavior.
You’ll also find some design tweaks throughout OxygenOS, and many of the first-party apps now include beautiful gradients.
There are also new features like One-Take, which lets you take a photo of the subject and use it as your home screen wallpaper, lock screen wallpaper, or always-on fun style.
Even more impactful is the arrival of Open Canvas on small screens. This allows for faster split-screen multitasking on the smaller screen of the OnePlus 12, which we’ve been testing out the update for. Open Canvas first debuted with the OnePlus Open and later appeared on the OnePlus Pad 2. This is clearly the best software feature OnePlus has released. This extension to traditional smartphones seems strange at first, but the ability to quickly switch between apps makes split-screen multitasking actually feel useful. It’s much faster than traditional multitasking and gives you more flexibility in what you’re trying to do.
And of course, you’ll also find: a lot A.I.
Like everyone else, OnePlus (and Oppo) has packed this update with new AI features. The Notes app has an AI assistant, the Photos app (not Google Photos) has AI-powered integration with Google Wallet to turn photos into passes (which is pretty cool), and the Photos app has AI Reflections. There is an eraser, both of which utilize AI unblur and upscaling features. Reflection tools work well, but don’t expect miracles.
There’s also Intelligent Search, which combines on-device and online search into one feature, allowing you to search both what you find online and what’s stored on your device, such as photos and documents. Masu. I haven’t had much time to play with these features yet, but if Intelligent Search works as OnePlus says it does, it looks like it could be very useful.
There’s also a new “Share to iPhone” shortcut, which no one will ever use.
OnePlus also brought Circle to Search with the Android 15 update. We hope this feature comes to other OnePlus devices soon. Similarly, Gemini will now be the default assistant on OnePlus devices, while Google Assistant will remain on OnePlus 12 until you manually change it.
I was wary of this update before trying it out, but it didn’t feel all that different from the previous one. The introduction of Open Canvas on traditional phones makes things a little smoother, adds some features, and brings at least one major update. I call this an overall win in my book.
OxygenOS 15 will be available on OnePlus 12 (open beta) starting October 30th, and will be available on other devices soon.
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