OxygenOS 15: Some of the top features you’ll love [Video]

Android 15 for OnePlus phones is here, with the public release of the OxygenOS 15 for the OnePlus 12 – here’s what’s new and some of the top new features you need to know.

The bad news is that not every feature is available immediately in the earlier-than-expected OxygenOS 15 release. Some of the AI functionality is still missing. These are likely to arrive in a future update; we’ve tested out Android 15 for OnePlus phones on the first public build.

Visual changes and animations

While most people will never open and close every app on their home screen in quick succession, OnePlus has decided to improve animations when opening and closing applications. It’s hard to tell unless you open and close apps quickly, but lots of people appear to be passionate about this. The OnePlus 12 was already a very capable phone, but it’s worth noting that this makes your phone feel a little bit faster and smoother.

You might spot some neat “shimmering” effects when plugging your phone in to charge or unlock it. A new “Halo” fingerprint animation showcases the shimmer effect, too. Some of the pre-installed home screen widgets have gained updated fonts and complications.

Some of the color has been drained from the Settings section with a monotone theme. However, the OnePlus stock app collection is now brighter and more vibrant. The icon customization now includes an option called “Radiance” and “Shadow,” which join the old classic “Material” menu if you want to try something different. The Dynamic Color icon support is getting renamed. You’ll see it as a toggle under the Custom section as “Adopt system colors.”

OnePlus also claims that the system installation is even smaller than it was previously. It’s still showing almost 23GB on my device, but the actual “System” size is under 8GB. That seems like a big decrease. Caches and other logs account for around 16GB.

More Shelf cards

If you use the Shelf section, OxygenOS 15 features a few more choices for your quick widget section. You can resize these to 1×2, 2×2, and 4×4, which offers lots of information and utility as you can create a layout that maximizes data on screen. OnePlus has added some larger layouts to account for these too. While these apps aren’t available in many places, OnePlus confirmed that Zomato and Blinkit widgets can be integrated here, too.

New Control Center and Notification Shade

The quick-access Control Center is getting some attention in OxygenOS 15, and it can be split into two distinct access panels. This is an optional change that—again, mimics iOS—lets you swipe from the top right of your screen to access the Control Center. Swiping from the top left opens the notification shade. If you swipe left or right, you’ll quickly move between the two sections.

Live alerts

Stolen directly from the Dynamic Island on iPhone, the “Live alerts” feature in OxygenOS 15 expands the area around the punch-hole notch to bring in widgets and quick-access floating panels. The downside is that not many apps beyond a few default system options support this section right now. You can track a timer, see screen recorder settings, and personal hotspot data from here. If multiple are available, you can swipe between these to switch or dismiss.

You should be able to use this with media apps, but it doesn’t appear to work with YouTube Music right now. When using the in-built Screen Recorder, you can quickly tap the Live Alert floating controls to end a recording and save it to your device or tap and check the current status/stats. At best, it’s a timesaver; at worst, it’s just a huge iOS gimmick ported to Android.

Flux themes

There’s a neat way to improve the OxygenOS lockscreen with Flux Themes. This is kind of like how iOS added some customization to the lockscreen but taken up a few notches. You can use the option to add images and text that will dynamically change when you interact.

You can also add basic widgets like step count or key information, including weather conditions. It’s not truly extensive, but there are neat options like the ability to add blur or glass effects to photos. The animation style is also taken into account so you can have a more seamless experience with your personalized choices.

Circle to Search

This popular feature is coming in a future OxygenOS 15 update, but for now, it’s not available. You probably have a good idea how this works: long-press the gesture bar, and you can draw to perform a visual search. It’s super simple.

Open Canvas

Although initially limited to the OnePlus Open, the Open Canvas floating window management feature is coming to slabphones with OxygenOS 15. This just enhances the split-screen mode by letting you do things like drag and drop between applications. For instance, you can drag an image from the Photos app into Notes and attach it inline. You’re also able to make the split-screen ratios greater if you wish without closing the secondary application.

Private safe enhancements

The Private Safe mode now lets you save content into unique folders if you want to separate important files or organize them when you need to access later. Previously, all files were contained within one huge folder.

OnePlus has understood that when you access the Recent apps menu, you might want some more clues as to which app you’ve come from so that you know where to go next. When you launch into the Recents or multitasking menu, the last app you opened will shift off to the right side of your screen to indicate you’re leaving this application. The navigation icons also show you just where you are in relation to that app.

One of the most pointless new features in OxygenOS 15 is the “Share with iPhone” feature. In principle, it’s great. In practice it requires anyone with an iPhone to download the O+ connect app and open it every time you want to send a file. There are better, less burden-free services where you can do the same because you technically create a mini hotspot and send it over. It’s a colossal waste of time unless you want to send huge files – at least in my opinion.

Find My Device offline

If you lose your phone and it’s powered off, it can be a huge hassle to locate it. OnePlus is also adding support for offline tracking of your OnePlus 12 with Find My Device. This isn’t a silver bullet, as it will only work for around 24 hours after your device powers down. That might be just enough time to track where it was last seen and get it back.

Theft Protection

This isn’t tied directly to OxygenOS 15, but it may enable the feature on some devices. Theft Protection is a new protective option that, when enabled, adds extra security controls if the worst happens and someone snatches your phone.

When OxygenOS 14 launched, we didn’t see a ton of AI functions touted. That has massively changed this year as OxygenOS 15 has a ton of AI functions and features bundled in. These vary from image editing tools to ways to improve your writing or quick replies. As of the public OxygenOS 15 Open Beta going live, these are not yet available but include:

• AI Unblur – This works like Photo Unblur on Pixel phones and sharpens your photos.
• AI Reflection Eraser – This reduces the glare and reflection of glass and other surfaces without distorting the image.
• AI Detail Boost – This works by upscaling photos to 4K resolution while retaining quality.
• Pass Scan – This allows you to take a picture of things like paper tickets or boarding passes and quickly add to Google Wallet.
• AI Notes – When enabled, this will allow you to use functions like writing clean-up, auto-formatting, and abilities to expand writing, etc.
• AI Reply – This works by offering contextual replies to messages that you can tailor based on the tone you want to take.
• Intelligent Search – This builds on the Global Device Search with contextual file searching for any on-device content.
• Gemini by default – Google Gemini will soon be the default assistant in OxygenOS 15, with Gemini Live also included.

When available, we’ll delve into these to determine which are worth their salt and which are just wasted space.

Have you tried OxygenOS 15 on your OnePlus 12 yet? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.