OPPO has just released its mid-cycle upgrade, the ColorOS 16.1. It’s still based on Android 16, and comes ahead of Android 17, which should arrive on eligible models later this year. The new ColorOS 16.1 upgrade brings a lot of new features and improvements. We’re looking at home and lock screen customization, new camera UI, Live Space, MindPilot AI, and much more.
ColorOS 16.1 is currently rolling out to the Find X9 series
The ColorOS 16.1 update is currently rolling out to OPPO’s Find X9 series. It’ll soon expand to the Reno 15 series and the Find X8 series. Besides these, the update should also expand to other flagships and mid-range models in the near future. The Find X9 Ultra and Find X9s in some regions will boot ColorOS 16.1 out of the box.
Live Space is easily the biggest addition in ColorOS 16.1. It’s a new live activity system, which shows activities like timers, music playback, food delivery tracking, and notifications. It’s an expandable capsule-style card at the bottom of the lock screen. You can swipe between live activities directly from the lock screen and can interact with them without fully opening apps. Live Space also works with Google Maps.
ColorOS 16.1 improves overall system animations. Right from app opening to closing, scrolling inside apps, and other system interactions now will be smoother and more natural. The Control Center and notification shade get stronger blur effects now, along with smoother transitions while pulling them down. The update also adds improved touch recognition to reduce scrolling jitters inside apps.
Live Space, redesigned camera app, and smoother system animations
ColorOS 16.1 brings the Contour Glow effect to Settings. This adds a subtle shimmer animation around UI elements like Control Center toggles, lock screen, widgets, and the search bar. The update brings a new Audio Sharing feature. This allows you to connect two audio devices to the same device and at the same time, and play audio through both simultaneously. This works with earbuds and other supported Bluetooth audio devices.
Another big change in the ColorOS 16.1 is the redesigned Camera app. It now features translucent layers, glossy blur effects, floating cards, bouncy animations, and smoother transitions across the interface. Settings don’t apparently take over the full screen; instead open inside pop-up cards. The whole UI gets bouncy animations. Devices like the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro also get new Lumo-style watermarks inside the camera app.
As for customization features, ColorOS 16.1 lets you organize the home screen automatically using AI. Apps can be arranged by category, like games, music, social media, and more. The system can also organize apps based on icon color. The update also lets you sort apps based on icon color inside the app drawer.
AI improvements and AirDrop support
AI features are also getting some neat upgrades/improvements. Firstly, Mindspace now includes a new AI assistant called MindPilot. It supports ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini directly inside the app. Users can talk to it in natural language and even ask questions. There’s a new AI Menu Translation, which scans menus and foreign language text directly through the camera and translates instantly. It can even identify different currencies and convert during travel.
The new AI Bill Manager helps you track expenses, income, daily averages, and monthly spending patterns. It also allows setting spending limits and asking the AI to get spending data. Document Scanning is much better now. It automatically cleans up wrinkles, shadows, glare, and blur, so scans look cleaner. It can read handwriting, long paragraphs, and tables more accurately. Scanned documents now auto-save directly into the Documents app. It can also scan multiple pages faster.
With ColorOS 16.1, OPPO is adding AirDrop support to Quick Share. This allows you to share files with Apple users without needing any third-party apps. The feature is currently available on the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro. There are other handy additions, like Caller ID and Spam protection, an equalizer for the speaker, and OPPO Share.
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