OnePlus makes a fantastic smartphone with the One, but they have made some pretty big mistakes along the way. Their invite system made a lot of people unhappy, as did some early quality control issues with the device. Most recently, they have been in some trouble with Cyanogen, Inc., the company that they partnered with to make the custom ROM that runs on the One. Cyanogen signed a deal with Micromax in India for exclusive rights to CyanogenMod, and then OnePlus made moves to break into the Indian market. OnePlus is unhappy with that because it means Cyanogen can't support the One in India. Steve Kondik and Cyanogen, Inc. have been quiet on the subject, until two days ago.

OnePlus posted in their forums that the Cyanogen features in the One are "OnePlus features (including ClearImage), they have not been developed by Cyanogen." This was not true, and Steve Kondik broke his silence to set the record straight. He posted on his Google+ page that "I ran across this forum post that makes me quite upset. CM is full of features like themes, which we developed from the ground up and also open sourced much of the work so that it could get that much better. Seeing others claim our work as their own is just sad."


OnePlus quickly changed their story and updated their forum post after Kondik called them out. The response that they changed now reads "Gestures, tap-to-wake, ClearImage and some other tweaks are exclusive OnePlus features. They have been developed by third-party companies and implemented on the One by Cyanogen. Themes, privacy/security tweaks, and everything else that you can find in the nightlies, has been developed by Cyanogen." They are making it clear who worked on those features and built them into the One. That doesn't change the fact that OnePlus is throwing shade at Cyanogen, Inc. because they are unhappy.

OnePlus is a young company. They have come a long way and we can definitely give them some grace for the mistakes they have made. Unfortunately they continue making boneheaded mistakes, one after another. It's time for them to grow up.