OnePlus is turning to you to design its next killer feature

OnePlus has announced an unusual competition for its particularly die-hard fans. Forum members are being encouraged to make suggestions for the next big OxygenOS feature, and the winner will be flown out to see their baby get unveiled as part of a “VIP experience.”

“Every day, we get hundreds of ideas for how to improve our devices,” wrote OnePlus staff member Ruby G on the official forums. “Put to the test, would your idea survive the logical hoops of implementation?

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“For those of you who’ve seen the show Shark Tank, you know what I’m getting at. If you have a dream feature you’d like to see implemented into OxygenOS, we hereby invite you to take on our Product Manager Challenge.”

If that all sounds a lot like hard work for nothing, the eventual winner will be richly rewarded. Not only will they be flown out to the official launch to “see their idea come to life”, but they’ll also receive the phone where their idea now lives − free of charge.

There’s a fairly swift turnaround time on this. The competition closes on February 22, and entrants will have to fill out what Ruby G refers to as “a simplified version of the product pitch process that our product managers use every day”.

That involves answering key questions (“who are the users?”, “what is the user value?”, etc.) and including diagram sketches to map the user experience. On the plus side, this should winkle out unworkable ideas pretty quickly, but on the negative it’s a lot of hurdles to jump through for what is essentially a game of chance where the odds are distinctly stacked against you.

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Maybe this will reveal a brilliant innovation that nobody’s tapped into. If so, we’ll know all about it in mid-March when the winner is revealed. 

Is this a great way of crowdsourcing features, or a sign that OnePlus is out of ideas? Let us know what you think on Twitter @TrustedReviews.