I've added up to here with this with what
with this being old enough to remember when OnePlus stood for well-designed
phones with clean software at rock bottom prices it's been painful for me
watching their slow descent into mediocrity and it's high time that I
share my thoughts the one time Flagship killer has been plagued by hardware
issues software glitches and most
damningly lackluster support for the Enthusiast users who made them what they
are today what the heck happened I used
to rely on OnePlus as my recommendation go-to for friends and family alike the
one company other than that one that I could count on for years of intuitive
software updates and trouble-free operation then in the last couple of
years I've ended up in the doghouse twice over OnePlus recommendations first
with my son which is bad enough then with my wife which is much much worse so
now to make it up to her I'm gonna have to buy her something nice
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head to build redux.com Linus and start
your new build today while I've been personally frustrated for a while it was
in exchange with our good friend Steve from Gamer's Nexus that pushed me from
I'm not recommending these to friends anymore to I need to make a video about
this it appears that certain models of OnePlus phones have been afflicted by a
strange bug that causes their storage to fill up at an alarming rate intriguing
now the obvious solution would be to delete some cat pictures but if user
reports are anything to go by not even a complete Purge of precious memories of
snowball 1 is enough to free up the space and in fact there's no indication
within the UI of what is consuming all
of the storage even factory resetting these devices yielded no improvement so
to diagnose what's going on here we need to go to the device logs logs are a
record of diagnostic data and they can include information about operating
system updates app crashes physical errors anything that could help to
troubleshoot a device that isn't functioning correctly only we've got a
problem this log data on Android isn't available
to end users at least not out of the box
thankfully OnePlus has still got one thing right they are one of the only
Android phone makers who still allow adventurous users to Tinker under
Android's Hood by rooting their device this process comes with enough risk that
most manufacturers will actually void your warranty just for attempting it but
it also has some benefits including granting complete access to the phone's
file system and it was in these typically hidden system folders that a
few Brave enthusiasts came across some modem log files or dumps that were
pretty suspicious for starters they were big hundreds of megabytes in some cases
which is a lot of text but your phone
generating big log dumps isn't itself a
problem it's when it doesn't clean up after itself and that's exactly what
happened here affected users discovered that onepluses historically well-managed
oxygen OS was simply leaving these logs
to pile up until there was no storage left for anything else well great now
that we know what the problem is it's an easy fix right not exactly while rooting
is an option for OnePlus users it comes
with a plethora of inconveniences first and foremost being that many apps
including Banking and entertainment apps will simply refuse to run if they detect
a rooted device not a great workaround it also doesn't change the fact that
your system is still dumping these large files into storage on a consistent basis
it's like okay there's a hole in your ship but don't worry this bucket will
save the day dumb we tried reaching out to OnePlus
about the problem and a couple of weeks later we finally got a reply indicating
that they are aware of the issue and have been working to fix it which I mean
is okay except that there are complaints about this going back as far as mid 2021
with OnePlus reps at times giving users the run around or even ghosting them
entirely we would never ghost our Floatplane.com subscribers check it out
for behind the scenes and outtakes now In fairness to the Reps if my recent
experience is anything to go by oneplus's software team has plenty of
other bugs to squash here's one that persisted on my wife's phone for months
okay In fairness the arrow is within
about the same area code but she's going to need a bit more accuracy than this if
she's going to end up on the right off-ramp hey my son's deal breaker issue
was an even stupider one his phone got an update that completely broke data
access on the Telus mobile network well no problem I thought I'll just go edit
the APN settings and nope OnePlus actually Grays out these buttons making
them impossible to click on the most ridiculous thing about this seemingly
arbitrary interface decision is that the functions behind the grayed out buttons
still work so the workaround for me was
to use this third-party shortcut manager app to jump to those settings directly
bypassing the grayed out button the settings can be changed I mean
Apple gives access to APN settings OnePlus it is basic functionality
the WAN hoodies super secure phone pocket get yours today at lttstore.com
I can't recommend putting one of these in it though since Linus gave me this
phone a year ago I've had my camera app refuse to open until I restart but then
it breaks again the minute my kids do something cute I've also had problems
with picture messages for three months before they finally patch that and
probably the weirdest one was that I couldn't answer phone calls it's
intermittent so I couldn't catch it on camera but the green button to answer
calls just wouldn't register which is pretty important for you know a phone
they are losing me too I can't say I've
ever had my actual phone app not work but I've got my own problems the most
maddening one is the app switcher look at this if I go to click on the previous
opened app it reopens the app I was just
using instead of opening the app I clicked on I used the switcher dozens of
times a day so if you're starting to notice gray hairs that could be it Miami
and light sensor can take ages to adjust in dark areas and I've had camera
problems too after the Android 11 update I noticed that the images were being
over processed to the point where pictures of my son looked like he had
the life sucked out of him and I also noticed some odd fingerprint
scanner Behavior where it sometimes won't even pop up of course every phone
has bugs some of them lots so why are we
picking on OnePlus it's because they promise to be something different and
their Fall From Grace has left a hole both in the market and in our hearts
okay as cheesy as that is we're not the only ones who have noticed in early 2021
MKBHD uploaded a video titled what happened to OnePlus his ultimate
conclusion was that they didn't really change but rather they outgrew their
initial role as the enthusiast-focused Flagship killer sub brand for parent
company BBK he lamented their price
creep and the design compromises that they've made to appeal to the mainstream
but he understood that business units have to be profitable and expressed a
careful optimism about a potential return to form and he could still be
right all the right ingredients are still there and many of their big
announcements since then around pooling resources between OnePlus and Oppo have
been yeah and moments for people like me who
knew that co-founder Pete lau's previous role was as a VP at Oppo and also that
they never really left Oppo and OnePlus
are both subsidiaries of BBK
so with all the pieces still in place and nothing really changed why are they
struggling my diagnosis is that it's a matter of
focus Oppo and OnePlus Foams have run similar Hardware since day Zero I mean
bbk's different brands are literally only separated by curtains on the
production floor so it was always the software that set one plus apart it was
that obsessive attention to system responsiveness into meaningful
modifications to an otherwise mostly stock Android experience
so why has that changed well there was a leadership shakeup and
while neither has addressed the alleged conflict that caused fellow co-founder
Carl pay to leave he ended up founding his own company nothing it was pretty
clear during the awkward transition period where Mr Lyle gradually took on a
more public-facing role that the rift
between them was a long time Brewing if I had to guess what happened I would
say it was probably over controversial ideas like merging oppos from my
personal experience worse color OS software with onepluses really excellent
oxygen OS but as an outsider it's hard
to say for sure after all it is Pete Lau
not Carl pay Who is credited with bringing CyanogenMod the clean mostly
stock open source Android skin that eventually became lineage OS to Oppo in
the first place bottom line like Marquez I'm still
rooting for them and there is tons of time left to right the ship but it's
clear that they need to get their head in the game especially when it comes to
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for watching let us know in the comments how your experience has been with OnePlus has it gotten better or worse
over the years if you're looking for something else to watch check out our recent Tech Link videos where we
discussed how Apple still has no USBC on their upcoming iPhones but how the
European Union May force them to within the next couple of years