OnePlus One will run custom Android 5.0 build in India

The OnePlus One will go up for sale in India next week, but when it does, the company says that won’t run CyanogenMod like the OnePlus Ones in the rest of the world do.

OnePlus today penned a blog post in response to the news that Cyanogen Inc. has signed a deal with Micromax to make Micromax Yu smartphones the only devices in India to run CyanogenMod. OnePlus says that its disappointed by Cyanogen’s deal, but it has a backup plan.

OnePlus explains that over the past year, it’s been building an internal Android team that’s been putting together special OnePlus software for use in future hardware. Now that software will hit the OnePlus One as well. The software will be based on Android 5.0, will be free of bloatware and will stick to Google’s Material design language. However, OnePlus does say that it plans to include futures that it thinks are important to users.

The first community build of this custom version of Android 5.0 will be made available to Indian users in December. OnePlus expects to have a production-ready build completed in February. When that happens, OnePlus expects to offer online instructions for users that want to flash it at home. Finally, OnePlus says that it will support the OnePlus One for two years, beginning with the rollout of the first community build of its software.

Exactly what OnePlus’s custom version of Lollipop will look like remains to be seen. The company’s promise of keeping its customizations light is good to hear, though, and it suggests that OnePlus could follow Motorola’s footsteps when it comes to Android OS customization.

source: androidandme