"Mobile phones are not smart enough," says Pete Lau, CEO, OnePlus

Is OnePlus a completely independent organisation or is it part of the Oppo group?

Right now, we are a wholly independent company. The matrix of measuring this is that if OnePlus is not successful, the team will be dismissed.

What was the need for OxygenOS? Why not create it on top of Android?

The original Android has a very good framework and outline, but we feel that in terms of the experience and service, there is a lot of scope for improvement. Even for Google, they provide the original version for reference. So far, those not specialised in making products may not tell the difference between the original version and OxygenOS, but those who specialise can tell you a lot of differences in terms of details.

Which way do you think mobile as a form factor is evolving? How do you see mobile in the future?

In the future, mobiles will be smarter. Even if right now the mobile phones are called smart phones, they are not smart enough. Today, if we need to find a restaurant, we need to download an app. Why? Maybe in the future, the concept of apps will blur and fade. In future, we won't need apps. The ultimate goal of a smartphone is to do whatever I want without actually downloading those apps, perhaps, via carriers such as voice. There will be other mediums as well.

When you get around to doing the next version of the phone, what factors do you consider? Like Steve Jobs, do you think you know better, or the consumer does?

OnePlus has a very huge community globally which gives a lot of feedback and suggestions. I also agree with what Steve Jobs said. A lot of customers say what they want, but it is all on the surface. They don't really know what they want underneath the surface. When we launched OnePlus 3, a lot of them said they would want us to increase the battery and make the phone thicker. But deep inside I know that if I make the phone thicker, people will not like the phone that much. So, while we know from them that they want a better battery life, we can't make the phones thicker. If we do that, we will be dead soon.

The evolution of the mobile phone has been consumer centric. The phone is still not an office productivity device. In future, will the mobile become an office or an enterprise tool?

The probability of the mobile completely replacing current products is not high, though it can in many situations. In future, you will have the office, home and you on the move... everything will be seamlessly connected between mobiles and computers.

You were making very successful phones under Oppo. What made you start a completely separate company?

We have observed a lot of young people going to see comments and reviews of new products online, and trusting those reviews. They are confident with what they see. They will purchase the phone online without experiencing them. As there are many like that, we thought we can actually build a new brand around it - an online brand that can cater to these customer needs. Our vision is to share with the world quality technologies, and through this online model we can share with our customers the latest quality technologies.

In electric cars, it's the battery technology that's holding up the growth. How much is battery holding up mobile?

The battery has always held up the development of the mobile. Over the years, the development of battery has been very slow. If the intensity of the battery can be increased by five to 10 times, then the form of the phones and the battery life in the future will see a complete change.

What are the differences you see in the Chinese and Indian markets?

There are a lot of similarities in terms of the structure, the user group and the market. But there are some differences, too. When OnePlus entered the Indian market, the Indian consumer was more willing to share and express their feelings. OnePlus users on social media in India are among the most active among all our global markets. Indian customers are very peaceful. I told my team that if we want to develop the Indian market we must love this country. After coming here several times, I am in love with this country.

What happened to OnePlus 4?

There's nothing much to it. When I talked with our global team, they said that 5 is the number they like and they will use that; same with OnePlus 3T. Also, a lot of Chinese customers don't like '4' because it has the same pronunciation as 'death'.

When you launched OnePlus 1, what was the toughest problem you faced?

Back then, we found out that most of the brands hadn't done a very good job with the hardware. So we fully utilised that and became successful. We knew that the pain point of customers was that they didn't have very good hardware.

Within the phone, how do you prioritise between different parts - what to compromise on and what to give?

For me, the priority is to give our customers a very good user experience. Design is number one. It has to be very pretty and beautiful. We have to let the phone give you a very good feeling when you have it in your hand. Camera comes next. We think using a camera is a frequent situation for customers. I just want customers to feel very comfortable when they use OnePlus phones. It's a terrible feeling to encounter a lot of slowdowns while opening apps or using the phone. When we were making the product, I would actually scroll the phone every day to see whether it's smooth and gives me a comfortable feel. Achieving this smoothness is very difficult. So, it's a combination of hardware and software.

In the PC era, you had a decade when the hardware was getting better every year before the hardware improvements started slowing down. Do you see that happening with mobile phones, too?

The upgrading and improvement happens. But it's very difficult to predict whether it will slow down because you never know what will happen in the next five-10 years. But for us, the objective is always to bring out flagship Android phones. On the memory and RAM front, we lead by at least one year over other brands in the industry; in India, maybe two years. Right now, we have RAM of 8 GB; but in the Indian market, very few brands have even 6 GB.

In terms of the software, specifically, what are you looking at improving?

The basic experience will be the priority. In terms of increasing functions, we will be very cautious. People find that the frequent, everyday apps are not too many. Several years ago, a friend purchased an iPhone and even a year later his homepage was the same. For OxygenOS, the purpose is to be simple, highly efficient and trustworthy. We intend to give customers a better experience with the apps that they use every day. I have seen a trend emerge in China in terms of software. In the past, companies were increasing functions on their phones to attract customers saying they have many new things. But now, they are decreasing the number of new functions on the phones.

One of the criticisms about Android phones compared to Apple phones is the lag effect. Why has that not been resolved yet?

This is related to the openness of the Android system. It is an open platform so that app developers can access it. So that issue will be there. That said, OnePlus 3 is the smoothest among Android phones.

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