OnePlus is a global brand with presence spread across the globe and surely, you’d think the company has matured enough after making enough mistakes in the past but unfortunately, it hasn’t. In a new series of events, or should we say errors, in the case of OnePlus, the brand has been found pushing bloatware to the two of its most premium flagship smartphones available, the OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus Open.
First spotted by Android Authority, OnePlus is installing up to four additional third-party apps in some regions, unless you opt out during the setup process when it asks you to “Review additional apps.” Tested by the same publication, OnePlus is injecting four apps in India, one in the US and none in the EU. In addition to the four apps presented in India, there are three more pre-installed Meta apps: Meta App Installer, Meta App Manager, and Meta Services that were found on the OnePlus Open.
On top of that, these are installed as system apps, meaning you can’t uninstall them but disable them. Also, these are the same apps for which OnePlus received a lot of criticism as they were found pre-installed on the OnePlus 8 series, the brand’s flagship of that time.
If that wasn’t enough, OnePlus is further testing waters with more bloatware apps coming in soon, as spotted OnePlus enthusiast 1NormalUsername in the latest OnePlus 12 Oxygen OS 14.0.0.610 firmware. The user spotted evidence of more third-party apps being added to the list of pre-installed apps. These apps could be preloaded on the device either as full apps or as APK stubs/shortcuts in the future, said the report.
OnePlus’ Usual Response: It Was An Error
OnePlus was quick to released a statement to Android Authority, saying that “The soft-preloads on OnePlus 12 was an error made during testing and has been rectified as of 6 May. The OnePlus 12 does not come pre-loaded with any of these apps and will continue to remain light, fast and smooth.”
Android Authority says otherwise, and claims that it tested the same process after May 6 and was still presented with the same options to install bloatware.
OnePlus Errors: When Will The Trend End?
OnePlus was once known for offering a neat and close-to-stock Android experience with its OxygenOS software but those days are over. The brand has already received a lot of criticism in the past for not only the choices it makes with its software, but also for other mistakes it has been regularly making, with the most recent one being a goof-up with the OnePlus 12R specs showing the wrong storage type for the 256GB variant.
OnePlus has been a part of multiple controversies in the past, such as wrongly mentioning E-SIM support for Indian Variant of OnePlus 12, unexplained OnePlus Nord 2 explosions, multiple issues with OnePlus 9 series and even more. OnePlus surely accepts its mistakes and has often found to be offering compensation to the affected customers but it definitely doesn’t learn from the mistakes it makes, thereby continuing the infamous trend of making errors.
The trend has not only adversely affected the trust users have on OnePlus, but also affect the experience a user expects from a flagship that costs well above Rs 1 lakh in India. We hope this consistent behaviour from the brand’s side comes to an end soon, or things could soon go haywire for OnePlus.
