OnePlus releases first alpha of company’s new ROM, and it’s basically AOSP Lollipop

The folks at OnePlus revealed a while ago that they’d been working on their own ROM to pursue their own vision beyond CyanogenMod. We weren’t sure what to expect from their first and early effort, but we do now: it’s Android 5.0 Lollipop straight from the Android Open Source Project, and that’s about it.

The company published the ROM, which is in its first alpha state, for public flashing through the TWRP recovery, and they noted that the build doesn’t have any added features that don’t already come with stock AOSP Android Lollipop. That doesn’t mean that they haven’t done anything at all, but this is where they are in the early going.

It’s also worth noting that the ROM doesn’t ship with Gapps, the package which gives you access to all of Google’s services not shipped with AOSP. You’ll need to find a quick download of that package to flash after you’ve flashed the ROM (this one should do), but after that you should be good to go.

You should know there are a few known issues being worked through at the moment, though none are particularly experience-breaking. Here’s the quick list:

• Data roaming is on by default. Make sure to turn if off to avoid potential charges.
• Camera and video may be unstable. This build supports 4k video, however quality may be low as we are still fine-tuning the camera.
• Capacitive keys do not turn off when you enable software keys.
• Clock crashes periodically.
• If using the new app pinning feature in L, make sure to turn on the software keys first. Otherwise, you will have to reboot your machine.
• On first boot, startup time will be a bit slow.

No one said alpha builds were perfect, eh? Still, that list seems light enough to consider this one ready to be your daily driver if you can put up with a wonky camera and clock.

CyanogenMod’s wares are probably still your best bet if you’ve come to enjoy the OnePlus One’s unique features, but Lollipop for that particular configuration won’t be ready for quite a while and this is your best bet at getting a taste of Lollipop on your OnePlus One in somewhat official capacity.

That said, OnePlus expects to use this ROM as a basis for a much bigger project going forward, with the company looking to bring their own suite of features and looks in future updates. Feel free to hop on the bandwagon early on, but just know it won’t be anything special or out of the ordinary unless you really want a taste of Lollipop. Find instructions and download links over at the OnePlus forums.