"Created together with community" we've all heard it, read it, more times than we'd like. It's everywhere, on smartphone boxes on their website and on all things OnePlus, but what does it really mean?
There's always something going on the forums that'll make you feel like you're part of a "community", weekly updates so you know about the exciting stuff or weekend fun threads where you can engage in some fun activities with other forum users, announcements, contests, raffles and so on, yea the Community part is pretty much covered.
Now how OnePlus creates with Community? You've got Open ears forums, where once selected you can share your ideas and views on a predefined topic, Closed beta testers to improve Oxygen OS and some others things that we only get to know about when it's done like 7 Pro sample shot photographers or the focus group for Nord.
It's all fun and games until There's some issues within the community or products that users want OnePlus to acknowledge and address, OnePlus decides to turn a blind eye and OnePlus managed to do so not once, twice but many times and got away with it somehow.
If you're an old forum user you probably already know what I'm talking about but if you're someone new you might be curious (and I know you are) what bad this Angel could ever done? Well.
I'll walk you through some of the biggest oopsies.
OnePlus 2 and the Naugat Update : probably the biggest oopsie to date (probably not, keep reading and decide for yourself). Basically OnePlus promised OnePlus 2 users that they'll get the Naugat (Android 7) update and then just stopped talking about it, Even after a massive thunderclap campaign from you know who. later OnePlus decided to talk about it... But not here, on Android authority made all kind of bizarre excuses like "we didn't had enough people to work on that" or "OnePlus 2 hardware doesn't support Android 7". But never addressed it here on forums.
here's what OnePlus told Android authority
Jelly Effect on the OnePlus 5 : Yea upside down display on every OnePlus 5. People got mad, created thousands of threads but in a very expected turn of events, OnePlus turned to the Verge and said "It's Normal for Amoled panels" but didn't say it was normal for inverted Amoled panels (to be honest that was clever and sneaky). And never addressed the issue on the forums.
OnePlus's Statement on the Verge
But here's what people found after some digging
The mysterious Mkey App : with OOS 5.0.2 came an app that had no mention in the changelog. when enough people got worried about it, all we got was "The Mkey APK is a font resource that was provided officially for India for local font compatibility needs. This can be uninstalled by users if not needed or wanted, but we are required to provide it." There were a lot of follow up questions but we never got an answer, the App was removed with the next update without any explanation.
@SoniaB made a list of all of the follow up questions and you can read it
here read first two stickey posts to get the idea how bad the situation was... If you want to see how low OnePlus went, read further and you may find little Billy there.
There were more oopsies but I don't think I can write about it all so I'll just fast forward to the latest oopsies that for some reasons OnePlus still refuse to talk about here on forums.
OnePlus 8 series black bar and green/ purple tint issue : the issue is widespread you can find hundreds of threads about it on the forums and articles on the web but OnePlus refused to talk, unsurprisingly, just on the forums. OnePlus first told Android Police/9to5google that "there's a fix on the way" then they said it's the basic characteristics of Amoled then they admitted there must be some devices with hardware defect and replaced devices but never addressed it here on forums, Instead with all that going on Pete came out to tell people how great the display on the 8 series are
The Pursuit of Excellence: Striving to Deliver the Best Display Experience
The issue is still there, software "fixes" hardly fixed anything replacements were made people are still creating new threads and there's hardly anything you can call a "response" here on forums. Here's a notable and well detailed thread from a The LAB reviewer about the issue, do give it a read if you haven't already.
[The Lab - OnePlus 8 Pro] Taking a stand - Post review experience
Tint Issue on Nord : And as soon as people started receiving their devices, people started to report a similar issues with the Nord displays. There was a response... Well kind of. Here's a link to the response
Major green tint issue
It's very similar to what already has been said about the 8 series. But to my surprise there was a "side note" acknowledging the issue in the weekly update thread and while that was surprising enough, I thought maybe an acknowledgement thread would've been better and asked just that, later I was told that the side note was there by mistake, it wasn't supposed to be there and it was removed within minutes. My follow up questions were left unanswered (that's kinda expected) and the Nord display issue threads keep popping up with only one thread with a response that'll mostly go unnoticed unless Mods and users like
@B_Wrath will point other users to it.
So, now the question in title,
What purpose does this forums really serve?
1. To help OnePlus improve its products and services and to even get new ideas. Who contributes to it? Users. Who benefits from it? OnePlus.
2. There's thousands of users online at any given time and majority of those users come here looking for a solution for problems that they've been facing, with tireless work of mods and again with the help from people like
@B_Wrath many get the answers they're looking for and probably never login again, basically free Customer Support. Who contributes to it? Users and Mods. Who benefits from it? OnePlus.
But everytime there's an issue that users feel need to be addressed, OnePlus will either just straight up refuse to talk about it and hope people would get tired and stop asking about it or turn to the Verge, Android Authority or any other similar website with a very mediocre response. even if the issue was raised here on forums itself (which is the case most of the times.) Why?
And here's a few more questions for staff.
Why OnePlus always shy away from addressing the issues on forums?
Are we ever going to get an official and detailed response regarding the display issue on the 8 series (what has been done what's being done and what are the options for the users facing issues with their devices).
Is there going to be an official acknowledgement thread about the tint Issue on the Nord? So no one has to dig for that one post or turn to website like Android authority or 9to5google to know that you guys are aware of the issue.
I don't expect an answer.
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