OxygenOS Open Beta adds support for Project Treble on the OnePlus 5 and 5T

OnePlus is among one of the smartphone makers that offer a public beta program to its users. Releasing Open Beta version 13 for the OnePlus 5 and version 11 for the OnePlus 5T today, the company adds a number of new features and optimisations to both phones, but the most notable update is the addition of support for Project Treble.[caption id="attachment_4253643" align="alignnone" width="1280"]

Representative Image of the OnePlus 5T. Image: tech2/ Sheldon Pinto[/caption]For the uninitiated, Project Treble was announced ahead of Google I/O 2017 as a modular approach to the Android operating system and a way to speed up the entire process of updating smartphones, which has been painstakingly slow for some major OEMs including Samsung. This, in turn, gives device makers more time to work on software features to make the user experience more enjoyable and polished. In fact, XDA Developers in a report says that Google credits Project Treble as the reason why they were able to achieve a higher number of changes with Android P, as compared to that with Android Oreo.According to the report, Treble support has been made mandatory by Google for any smartphone manufacturer launching a device with Android Oreo and above but is not a necessity for any device that upgrades to Android Oreo from an earlier version. The inclusion also means that the OnePlus 5 and the OnePlus 5T become the first devices by OnePlus to include support for Project Treble.Apart from support for Project Treble, OxygenOS Open Beta 13 for the OnePlus 5 and 11 for the 5T also introduces a refreshed icon pack, support for selecting different accent colours, a "New installs" category in the app drawer and a freshly designed weather app apart from bug fixes.To install the Open Beta on a OnePlus 5, the company requires the user to first flash Open Beta version 12 before flashing version 13. As for OnePlus 5T users, they will require to flash version 10 of the Open Beta before flashing version 11. This will help retain user data. Users can go ahead and download the respective versions here, while users who are already part of the Beta program will receive an OTA update.