Right now we are in quite an obvious fight between what are the deeply personalized layers, such as TouchWiz in Samsung, or what would be a lighter and purer one to what Android is, such as Motorola's or Sony's own. A fierce fight to try to offer greater entity and brand in that of the Korean manufacturer, while in which it becomes the most similar to what can be seen in a Nexus, as a way of not wasting so much time in implementing Android updates and demonstrate that Google has been able to find a visual aspect and maximum user experience with that Material Design that has been applauded even by its own competition such as Apple.
Now we have another manufacturer joining that custom layer more close to what is Lollipop and Marshmallow and it distances itself from those loaded and heavy layers that sometimes become something tedious and get users to look for other types of phones. OPPO changes course, after being one of the companies that has always added a lot of customization to its own layer, to launch a version of its ColorOS that brings a version closer to the one that comes by default in a Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X. Another that, we could say, falls before the evidence that it is a great response in the interface and the ease that it can be for the manufacturer to launch Android updates as quickly as possible.
The market in China and India
In these two markets they are more used to highly customizable operating systems that differentiates them from what would be the stock version of Android. We only have to take a look at MIUI with Xiaomi to realize this.
What happens is that in the western market it goes to another destination with a cleaner interface, clear and without so much ornamentation, with a purer Android experience. The culprit of this is Google itself that with the launch of Android Lollipop and those ideas in the design from Duarte surprised everyone with its animations and other virtues of Material Design.
OPPO is responding to this differentiation between East and West with what would be Project Spectrum, a version of ColorOS which maintains a few key system features, but gets rid of what could be considered bloatware.
Project Spectrum
Project Spectrum is available for the Find 7 and Find 7a and can be already downloaded from this link. OPPO is planning to make Project Spectrum available to as many mobiles soon.
If there is one thing that stands out in the original ColorOS, it is an almost completely modified ROM that has gained huge popularity around the world. The improvements that it brings to Android is included in what is the audio, images and those off-screen gestures. In response to feedback from the community itself, OPPO has designed Project Spectrum to keep key features of ColorOS, while getting the devices closer to a version closer to that of devices like Motorola's.
Nor are we going to forget about the performance obtained with a cleaner version than use the base features of Android Lollipop or Marhsmallow. What can happen is that certain companies have found their success by offering years ago, at a time when Android's own layer did not have an exclusive and high-quality design, a particular customization that allowed the user to take full advantage of the hardware I had.
OPPO allowed it to reach an audience that found in 50 countries and that arises from the philosophy of "listening" to its customers in the various regions and designing products that are close to their needs and preferences.
Spectrum remains an option for now. If it is very well received, surely will not take long to adapt to these new times, as it has happened to Sony that launched a few months ago a pure version of Android test with "Concept for Android" for Sony Xperia Z3 users.
