OnePlus News Daily Dose #34: 3/3T Pie update closed beta sign-up, Holi affair, mobile gaming and more!

Although the festival of color is over, I can’t help myself but talk about Holi once more. Blame it on OnePlus – these guys have decided to share the vibrant story of their untimely Holi celebration in Delhi with the OnePlus community.

India Community Specialist Joel Jacob has shared a thread to narrate the story of the gorgeous event.

Our event started off with a special workshop on camera and photography conducted by our Innovation Director, Kevin Abosch. Kevin started interacting and contributing to OnePlus after the OnePlus 2 launch and ever since he has been working closely with the camera department. Unlike previous workshop’s we’ve had that focuses on Pro Mode and making the most out of your OnePlus device, Kevin spoke about perspective and honesty in photography.

Readers may recall Kevin, as we talked about him in one of our earlier daily dose of OnePlus news. The Irish polymath is helping the Shenzhen based OEM to complete with other smartphone makers in the field of camera.

Of course you should remember this spectacular snap of Kevin alongside Pete aka the CEO of OnePlus.

As a matter of fact, Pete’s arrival in that event was a secret. However, it was tough to hide such a salient piece of information.

We gathered back at the workshop area to select our winners for the photo contest and moved on to our next session where Kevin showed us how he takes portrait photos. Our contest winners got to be the subjects for this session. In the meanwhile, Pete made an appearance at the venue and surprised our workshop attendees. (Some community members knew about this beforehand and I wonder how)

You can experience the “Holi Affair with OnePlus” by taking a look at the recap:

OnePlus 3 and 3T users became a part of yet another untimely Holi, when OnePlus China announced the closed beta testing of Android 9 Pie in the form of HydrogenOS. The announcement finally brought a fresh wind of certitude to the frustrated group of users after a long time.

The Chinese team quickly announced the names of the eligible candidates, which was another indicator of  an upcoming global release.

The time has finally come today! Manu J., Global Product Operations Manager, has announced about the Android 9.0 closed beta testing initiative for global users.

Community Manager David Y. further described the reasons behind the closed beta. According to him, stability is the prime concern.

Even tho the overall Pie experience works pretty well at this stage, software team decided to postpone the open beta a bit because we believe a well-baked Pie should be on the top priority, that’s why we scaled up the existing Closed Beta Program to tackle more potential issues.

Similar to the Chinese beta testing process, users are asked to go through an online survey first. Users can find several mandatory questions as well as some optional ones in the questionnaire. A complete list of the questions is as follows:

• Is the OnePlus 3 or 3T your primary mobile device?
• Gender
• In what country do you live?
• Which of the following best describes your current occupation?
• On average, how often do you use your phone in a day over the last 3 months?
• Have you had any kind of testing experience in the past for beta or alpha versions of software or mobile os?
• Do you have any experience flashing custom ROMs or rooting your devices
• Link to OnePlus Forum profile
• Why do you want to be part of Closed Beta testing programme?
• Your primary Email address

The application window is rather short though – it is open till 2 PM (GMT), March 23. Hurry up padawans!

The OnePlus 3 and 3T may be 3 years old, but they still hold their chirms. A redditor who goes by the handle u/TDK_IRQ created an unconventional piece of art by sketching on the back panel of their OnePlus 3.

Dope, isn’t it! The guy also shared the secret behind the creation:

It’s pretty simple really

Wrap it in masking tape and use a pen to draw whatever you want 😀

Meanwhile OnePlus CEO Pete Lau started another interaction with OnePlus fans over Shina Weibo, aka the Twitter of China. This time, he wanted to know about the games users are using to push their phones to the peak limit of performance.

Are we going to see some early benchmarks of the upcoming Snapdragon 855 powered OnePlus phone from Pete in the near future? Or is this a clever hint about an update of the existing Gaming mode of OxygenOS? Let us know by commenting below.

In case you forgot, Pete asked about the design of the front camera to his Weibo followers in a similar way. These little hints are certainly engaging, aren’t they?

Let’s call it a day. See you guys tomorrow!

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