OnePlus 9, OnePlus 9 Pro receiving Android 12 update: What's new

Android 12 has been available on Google Pixel phones for nearly two months now, and even Samsung has pushed a stable update to five of its high-end devices. Now, the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro is joining the fray with a stable update to Android 12 available to some OnePlus 9 series owners.

Although the company has yet to post official release notes on its forums, some users have reported getting the update as an OTA on their phones. It looks a lot like the Open Beta software OnePlus released two months ago, complete with the company's new "Burdenless Design" appearance.

Many system tools; settings, theming, the app launcher, and more are all pulled directly from ColorOS, following the unification of the two platforms earlier this year. The next major update for the OnePlus 9 series will ship the unified operating system that combines the best of both OxygenOS and ColorOS, and that operating system will also ship on the next OnePlus flagship.

The full changelog follows:

System

• Optimised desktop icons with improved textures, by using a design inspired by brand-new materials and uniting lights and layers.

Dark mode

• Dark mode now supports three adjustable levels, bringing a more personalised and comfortable user experience.

Shelf

• New additional style options for Cards, making data contents more visual and easier to read.
• Newly added Earphone Control Card with Bluetooth earphone one-click adjustment.
• Newly added access to OnePlus Scout in Shelf, allowing you to search multiple contents on your phone, including Apps, Settings, Media Data, etc.
• Newly added OnePlus Watch Card in Shelf, to easily glance at your health stats.

Work-Life Balance

• The Work-Life Balance feature is now available to all users, allowing you to effortlessly switch between Work and Life mode via quick settings.
• WLB 2.0 now supports automatic Work/Life mode switching, based on specific locations, Wi-Fi network, and time, also bringing customised App notification profiles according to the personalisation.

Gallery

• Gallery now allows you to switch between different layouts with a two-finger pinch gesture, intelligently recognising the best-quality pictures, and cropping the thumbnail based on the content, making the gallery layout more pleasing
• Canvas AOD
• Canvas AOD
• Canvas AOD brings you new diverse styles of lines and colours, for a more personalised lock screen experience with inspiring visuals
• Newly added multiple brushes and strokes and support for colour adjustment
• Optimised software algorithm and improved face recognition to better identify the features and skin colour of different figures

The highlights of OxygenOS 12, other than the rebase to Android 12, are a few new quality of life features and improvements, such as the always-accessible Shelf from the notifications bar. More control over dark mode has been added with "Gentle," "Medium," and "Enhanced" modes that apply to the system and select apps. OnePlus also introduced a feature called "Inventive wallpapers" which can create an abstract design out of your images.

You can manually check for the update by going to Settings > System > System Updates.