OnePlus Will Reveal Details Of Its ‘Oxygen’ Android ROM On February 12

OnePlus introduced its own version of Android for its One smartphone earlier this month in response to its standoff with Cyanogen, and now the company has revealed that it will unveil its own ROM which can be installed on third-party Android devices on February 12.
Correction: OnePlus told us that, in fact, it won’t launch the ROM on the 12th. This is a tease-of-a-tease, and instead we can expect to see “more information about the ROM” not an actual download. Furthermore, co-founder Carl Pei told TechCrunch that OnePlus is not going to release the ROM for third-party devices, though he suggested some fans will develop unofficial ports.
Named ‘Oxygen’, OnePlus described it as being “open, customizable, and free of bloat and unnecessary features,” but those are the only details you’re getting for now. That vague description chimes with the Android fork for the One, which is initially based on Google’s stock version of Android but will be tweaked with new features over time.

“We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what this ROM means to us and our fans. We realized that, like everything we do, our true goal is to make the product that we ourselves would want to use—to make great technology more accessible for everyone,” OnePlus said in a post.
OnePlus’s entry into the software side of the smartphone business is an interesting one. Xiaomi was the first major company to develop both smartphones and its own operating system, and its success and unique identity has triggered a number of other firms to do similar. Letv just announced its first smartphone and own LeOS, while Cyanogen itself has grown its reputation through deals with Micromax and OnePlus, while — according to reports — there may be a tie-in with Microsoft coming.