Barely a few days after announcing that the recently launched OnePlus 9RT would be getting the next round of software updates, Chinese phone maker OnePlus also let us know that it was dropping software support for two of its devices.
Both the OnePlus 6 and the OnePlus 6T had arrived in 2018 and now the company has officially confirmed that these would not be getting further software updates. It appears a tad unfortunate that both devices should go off the radar together, given they didn't arrive together. The OnePlus 6 went official early in 2018 while the other variant was in the latter part.
[Update: January 18, 2022] -
As promised by OnePlus, the OnePlus 9RT, which launched just last week, got its first that brought the December 2021 Android security patch. Alongside, the update brings several improvements and bug fixes.
A report published by India Today quoted an unnamed OnePlus staff member to say that after three major updates and three years of receiving them, and more than 60 closed beta builds and 30 open beta builds later, OnePlus was closing the chapter on the two of their 2018 models from a software service point of view.
Of course, users would recall that the OnePlus 6 was launched with the Android Oreo out of the box while the OnePlus 6T debuted later the same year with the Android 9 Pie. Both these devices had received the Android 11 updates last year, making it the last one that these premium handsets would ever get.
Software updates function at two levels for users. They ensure that security patches that the company wants to push are downloaded and installed by the users and on the other hand, they help users get additional phone features on their handsets that are controlled by the software.
OnePlus released the Oxygen OS 11.1.2.2 update for these handsets last November and these appear to be the final ones. The official Android 12 build that is expected to figure in some of the more recent handsets from OnePlus would not be available for the OnePlus 6 and the OnePlus 6T handsets.
The company reiterated in July last year that OnePlus 8 smartphones and models that arrived thereafter would get three major Android OS updates as well as four years of security updates.
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