OnePlus Explains its OxygenOS Beta Program

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OnePlus has been doing Community Beta programs for its smartphones for a few months now. The Community Beta program is a good way to increase the scope of Beta builds to incorporate more test cases, while users get the chance to see what the latest feature additions and bug fixes have been done to the OS.

But Community Betas are not the only user-facing Beta testing that OnePlus does. In a post detailing the Beta Program that the company undertakes for OxygenOS, there is an additional Beta level at play. The system is explained by OnePlus as below:

Closed Beta: ~4 updates per month

Open Beta: ~2 updates per month

Official Release: ~1 update every 1 or 2 months

The Closed Beta group consists of ~60 testers, who provide feedback on potentially experimental updates, code and features to OxygenOS. These changes can be considered unstable as they might break important functionality, and so, a lot of these updates are not suitable for an Open Beta. One needs to apply to become a “Certified Closed Beta” tester, though OnePlus has not detailed how one goes about in doing that.

After feedback from the Closed Beta group has been incorporated into OxygenOS, the more stable of the releases move on towards the Open Beta. This is the Community Builds that we regularly see floating around. The Open nature of this beta helps make sure that more and more scenarios are covered to unearth potential bugs. This stage is considered semi-public due to its voluntary and opt-in nature coupled with the possibility of bugs.

After several rounds of these testing phases and after the releases are deemed stable enough, the update moves on to become an Official Release. This is what all users will have pushed onto their phones in the form of OTA updates. Due to the complex nature of code in place, there are still bound to be bugs, which is why OnePlus mentions that they continue on with feature requests and bug reports.

Comparing with the market competition, OnePlus has had a very good 2016. We hope they continue on with their run on the software end as well, and give us some new version number treats to play with.