OnePlus has now announced the OnePlus Software Maintenance Schedule for its devices which, as the name implied, is a new outline for how its updates will be shipped. The new schedule applies to the majority of its more recent devices, including the OnePlus 3, OnePlus 3T, OnePlus 5, OnePlus 5T, and the OnePlus 6. In fact, it applies to all of the devices falling under those brandings and is “effective immediately. As for the schedule itself, OnePlus is going quite a bit further than most other OEMs are willing to commit to. Starting from a given device’s first launch, each will be updated twice per month with new features, Android version upgrades, and Android Security patches. Those will obviously include only whatever features or upgrades are available, plus bug fixes, but it does mean security patches should be kept up-to-date even more regularly now. That portion of the update schedule will be in place for a full two years following launch.
After that first phase of updates comes to an end, OnePlus will continue with bi-monthly updates which include only security patches for an additional year. That places the support cycle at three years for every OnePlus device listed and new devices going forward. Of course, it’s unlikely that any new bugs which crop up following the first couple of years will go unpatched following this announcement – given the frequency with which the company has promised to send out patch updates. So OnePlus users should have nothing to be concerned about on that front either. That means the oldest devices still eligible for updates, the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T respectively, will continue to receive OTA updates until November. Then it will be shifted onto the extended Android Security Patches only channel for an additional year.
Beyond that announcement, the company also revealed that its last Open Beta offering for those OnePlus 3-branded handsets will be supplemented by a stable version of the software for testers to move back to, starting in July. That should signal that a final OxygenOS update will be ready at some point before November, although there’s no indication as to when that will actually be sent out.