Android Lollipop Alpha ROM for OnePlus One now available to download

OnePlus One owners can now try out an Android Lollipop Alpha ROM that was specifically designed for their devices. The manufacturer wants “a sweet start” to 2015, which is why it wanted to share the good news with its customers now. This news certainly comes at a great time, as people were starting to worry about the future of the OnePlus One after the recent scandal with Cyanogen in India. After it was revealed some weeks ago that users in the country will not be receiving any further updates to CyanogenMod, OnePlus revealed that they will be switching to Android Lollipop in the future. We’ve come full circle today with the custom ROM now being available to download and the company even providing instructions on how to install it on your OnePlus One.

  • Download Oneplus_community.zip and copy the file to your phone. On a Mac, you can use Android File Transfer. If you have TWRP installed, you should see a TWRP folder, and that’s where you want to place the zip.
  • Boot into TWRP recovery. You can do this on your OPO by holding both the volume down and power buttons.
  • Once you are in the recovery interface, the first thing you want to do is go to Wipe and do a factory reset to clean your data, cache, and Dalvik. Note that you will lose all of your files so make sure everything is backed up before continuing.
  • After the wipe, go to install and find the zip you copied to your device and confirm flash. This should flash the ROM to your device.
  • After flash is complete. Clear your cache again. If you have GApps, install it now. Reboot your phone.
  • You should now be booted into the new ROM. Enjoy.​

The manufacturer says that the current build of the alpha ROM is very similar to stock Android Lollipop, although you might see a few changes here and there. More features will be added at a later time, but for now the company mainly wants OnePlus One owners to see what they’ve been up to lately. OnePlus also reminds users that this is very much an alpha build and comes with the usual assortment of bugs. Some of these issues are already known, so expect fixes to come as work on the ROM progresses. You can check out the OnePlus One Android Lollipop ROM here, but make sure you read the instructions carefully before you decide to install it.