OnePlus hired the key people behind Paranoid Android

OnePlus kind of let us believe it would show us at least a preview of its new OxygenOS today, but instead we’ve got news on who is going to develop the new OS – some of the leading figures behind Paranoid Android.

Paranoid Android is the most popular custom ROM project outside CyanogenMod. Offering stability and some unique features on top of a stock-like experience, PA secured tens of thousands of followers. Now some of the lead developers and designers behind it will be working for OnePlus to make OxygenOS.

Among the PA team members mentioned by OnePlus in a blog post are Aaron Gascoine (co-founder of PA, technical lead), Arz Bhatia (UI/UX lead), Carlo Savignano, Hieu Nguyen, Jesús David Gulfo Agudelo, and Yamil Ghazi. Besides these PA people, OnePlus purportedly has another 50 engineers dedicated to the project.

OnePlus also talked about the motivation behind the project (getting away from CyanogenMod is not mentioned, of course):

By doing so, we can offer better localization and faster updates. We can directly implement user feedback and make it easy for the OnePlus community to shape our ROM and create the OS that they want to use. Integration between hardware, software, and the cloud will become more seamless and unified for everyone using a OnePlus device. By creating our own software, we’re better able to work directly with our users to improve our OS. It’s something we’ve become quite fond of saying: when we work together, amazing things happen.

It’s not clear for now what will happen to the Paranoid Android project – will the PA team enrolled by OnePlus still contribute to the project? Also unclear is whether OnePlus plans to incorporate some of the features developed for PA into Oxygen OS.

We’re looking for more details –  meanwhile, tell us your opinion on this development.