Oxygen OS 3.5 community build released with UI improvements and new apps

OnePlus’ Oxygen OS team is back with a new community build.

Hot on the heels of the Marshmallow-based community build for the OnePlus X, the team announced the release of the Oxygen OS 3.5 community build for the OnePlus 3.

Community builds are beta-type releases meant to test out new features and iron out kinks ahead of the stable release. These builds have to be flashed manually and OnePlus requests testers to share feedback about their experience.

Oxygen 3.5 brings unspecified “UI improvements,” new and revamped OnePlus apps, a better camera firmware, and improved customization and settings options.

More work has been put into “back-end enhancements that will improve our processes,” according to OnePlus’ announcement, and the update also lays the groundwork for faster and more frequent updates in the future.

There’s actually a pretty substantial list of known issues with Oxygen OS 3.5 community build, though nothing that we would call a show-stopper. One potential exception might be the broken System UI tuner – the team warns that trying to use it could get into serious issues that can only be resolved with a factory reset.

One other thing to know is the fact that once you install this community build, you will effectively be part of an ongoing beta program. That means you will receive OTAs for community build releases, but not for official releases. If you want to go back to official OTAs, you will need to flash an official build.

Instructions for downloading and installing Oxygen OS 3.5 are available here. All the usual warnings – backup! – apply.