OnePlus launches Android Lollipop Alpha: their new non-Cyanogen ROM

It’s safe to say that OnePlus and their software partner Cyanogen have been experiencing some communication difficulties lately. If you don’t remember, OnePlus found out that they couldn’t ship the OnePlus One to India running Cyanogen’s software, thanks to an exclusive deal between Cyanogen and Micromax. Then to clarify, Cyanogen released a statement telling saying this wasn’t necessarily the case. If that’s not enough, a few weeks later, the OnePlus One was completely banned in India, thanks to that deal with Cyanogen and Micromax. After about a week the ban was lifted and Indian users could begin to buy the phone again.

Thanks to this whole debacle, OnePlus has put together a group of software developers, and is now on its way to releasing their own ROM independently from Cyanogen. Earlier today, OnePlus announced their first ROM, Android Lollipop Alpha. This new software build is OnePlus’ first foray into building their own custom ROM. The Android Lollipop Alpha build is in the very early stages of development, so there are naturally a ton of known bugs with the software already. There aren’t any extra features baked into the OS, so it’s basically just bare-bones AOSP Lollipop for now.

You can flash the software to your OnePlus One using the instructions on the site. When the software is ready for the general public in the future, OnePlus will likely send out an over-the-air update to its users. So, if you aren’t keen on flashing alpha software to your device, give it some time, and you’ll receive OnePlus’ software sometime within the next couple of months.

Remember, this is an alpha build of the software, so it will be extremely buggy a difficult to use in some situations. Here are the known bugs in the software so far:

• 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

If you’re interested in getting the software for yourself, head to the OnePlus link below!