OnePlus News Daily Dose #44: 3/3T Pie public beta, Community app, fingerprint scanner and more!

With the release of OnePlus 6T, the Shenzhen based OEM broke a number of traditions. First, they actually removed the 3.5 mm headphone jack – even ignoring the overwhelming result of a user poll created by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei.

https://twitter.com/getpeid/status/973745407208468485

Another shocking change in the design language was the removal of the rear mounted fingerprint scanner in favor of a in-display optical fingerprint reader. Some people liked it, but most of the customers found it rather inferior and gimmicky.

The Goodix made optical fingerprint scanner is giving headache to custom ROM developers since the beginning. In one of our older articles, we explained the situation:

While the codes to handle that piece of hardware are available, the way the sensor differentiates a normal touch vs. a touch intended for unlocking the device is a proprietary mechanism and OnePlus haven’t published it yet.

The community developers have to reverse-engineer the implementation done by OnePlus in their OxygenOS, study the workflow and create an open source alternative of it.

Back in January, we reported that XDA Recognized Developer vache (Vache Ounet) successfully crossed the initial hurdles.

Almost two and a half months later, the latest update of unofficial Pixel Experience ROM for OnePlus 6T (codename: fajita) has finally brought the good news! The in-display fingerprint scanner of the phone is now partially working under custom ROMs.

As you may notice, the current implementation is slightly unpolished. Ambient display or Always on Display prevents it from working properly.

We hope the developer will eventually squash out all these issues so that OnePlus 6T (and future phones with under display fingerprint) users can enjoy custom ROMs.

On the other hand, the OnePlus China team has officially begun the public beta testing of the Android 9 Pie update for OnePlus 3 and 3T.

The changelog looks like the following after translating from Chinese to English:

System

-Update to Android P version

– Brand new UI design, more details, etc.

-Android patch update to 2010.04

Do not disturb mode

– More powerful do not disturb mode, do not disturb behavior and time are defined by you

Game mode 3.0

– New upgrade, notification reminder is lighter, three-way application call suspension reminder, help you immerse the game and don’t miss important information

The inclusion of April security patches is indeed a noteworthy development. The team mentioned that the final Pie based HydrogenOS stable update would be available as an OTA for the users who flashed this build.

Along with full update zips, OnePlus also shared special downgrade packages for the end users to roll back to Oreo. For more details, please take a look at this article.

Moving on, we highlighted the arrival of a revamped OnePlus Community app in daily dose #42. Community Manager David Y. himself dropped the hint.

As a matter of fact, the team has already introduced a new beta! Interested OnePlus users can enroll for beta testing by visiting this link.

The changelog of the newest beta (v2.4.0) is as follows:

• A feedback platform available* directly from the app’s homepage, where users can share product ideas and report bugs.
• Search experience improvements including trending searches, sorting, filtering and many other optimizations.
• Multi-language support on the app’s interface.
• General UI design optimization and bug fixes.

Robin A., OnePlus Community Product Manager, further mentioned that:

To get your hands on this function, on top of upgrading to Community App 2.4.0, the log-tool integrated into the system is also required. The integrated log-tool only exists in the latest open beta for 5/5T & 6/6T for now. It will also be available in next round of officially stable OTAs.

For more details, do take a look at the official announcement thread. The UI changes may be useful to get some early glimpses of the upcoming UI overhaul of OxygenOS via the controversial #PMChallenge.

The community members are the pivotal strength of OnePlus. The company regularly embraces them with a number of interactions.

One of them is the Mobile Filmmaking Masterclass initiative in collaboration with eminent Italian filmmaker Giacomo Mantovani. With the part two of the series, the participants were instructed to submit individual storyboard ideas of their short films.

According to OnePlus:

The threads with the highest votes will then be presented to a panel of judges who will select the top ten finalists. Each of these finalists will then receive a brand-new OnePlus 6T which they will use to shoot their short film on. Once the films have been shot, edited and polished, we will select the top three.

The voting season is finally over and the judges have picked the top 10 candidates.

I’m personally very happy to see my favorite one on top of the list, although they have mentioned that list is not ordered.

Looking forward to get those awesome ideas materialized and watch those movies!

That’s it for today; see you guys tomorrow. ?

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