When the OnePlus One launched we absolutely loved the device. The combination of super high-end hardware with a low-end price really sat well with us, and the phone felt just as good as it seemed it would. However about a month or so after I owned the device I started noticing that the touchscreen was getting more and more unresponsive, making typing extremely difficult. Near the end of August Cyanogen brought out an update that featured a workaround solution that was supposed to fix the multi-touch issues that had cropped up, and while it helped for a little while most users, including myself, didn’t see much of a difference if any. Soon after OnePlus acknowledged the issue and stated that it was a firmware problem with the Synaptics digitizer found in the touch screen that registers multiple touches, and that they were working with Synaptics to get the problem rectified.
Yesterday was the magical day that Synaptics delivered this new firmware driver to the Cyanogen team, and now they’re working on getting it in the CyanogenMod 11S builds that the OnePlus One ships with. This looks to be scheduled as build 36R, which is above the current 33R, and will feature the touch fixes as well as a couple of other issues that needed to be addressed. CyanogenMod has already rolled it into the code for the nightly versions of regular CM11, and those willing to switch from the stock CM11S or their current ROM to the 09/11 nightly that’s available on Cyanogen’s servers right now will find that the new touch screen firmware is a part of those builds.
Users on both the OnePlus forums as well as CyanogenMod forums are reporting that the issue is either completely gone or virtually gone, with only a few users saying that they’ve still got some intermittent issues. There’s no telling if this is the final fix or if OnePlus will have to RMA some devices to get this fully working, but this is the solution that we’ve been waiting for, not a work around as has been delivered before. You can find the nightly builds for Bacon here, which is the code name for the OnePlus One. Happy flashing, and if you don’t want to flash the official over-the-air update should be making its way out in the very near future!