Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Oxygen OS 15 adds a new accessibility feature called Simple Mode.
- Simple Mode makes sounds louder and also makes text and home screen icons much larger.
- This feature will make OnePlus phones and tablets easier to use, especially for the elderly or people with visual impairments.
OnePlus is a smartphone brand that’s well-known for offering great bang for your buck, which makes it tempting to buy some of their devices as gifts to give to friends or family members. Since OnePlus devices run on Android, anyone you give them to should be able to use them without many issues, thanks to the abundance of built-in accessibility options. To make their phones and tablets even easier to use by the elderly or people with visual impairments, OnePlus is introducing a new feature called Simple Mode in Oxygen OS 15.
Located under Settings > Accessibility & convenience in Oxygen OS 15, Simple Mode makes text and icons larger, simplifies the home screen and Settings, and boosts the ringtone and notification volume streams to the maximum level.
To be more specific, Simple Mode makes the following changes to Oxygen OS 15:
- It sets the font and display sizes to their largest values.
- It enables the button layout to three-button navigation.
- It changes the Quick Settings layout to the Classic UI.
- It simplifies the home screen into a 3×4 grid and gets rid of the app drawer.
- It turns the home screen dock into a 3×1 grid.
- It simplifies the Settings home page by getting rid of sections and hiding many menus.
Here’s a gallery that compares the home screen and Settings in Oxygen OS 15 with and without Simple Mode:
Apart from changing the home screen grid or bringing back the app drawer, you’re welcome to tweak everything else after Simple Mode has been enabled. You can change the Quick Settings layout back to the new Split UI, enable navigation gestures, access the full Settings menu, and more. If you want to revert everything back to its original state before you enabled Simple Mode, then you just need to tap Exit Simple Mode at the bottom of Settings.
Simple Mode is a great new feature in Oxygen OS that makes OnePlus phones and tablets much easier to use without needing to poke around in the Settings app. For those who have never used a OnePlus device before, Simple Mode is a one-click option to make Oxygen OS more accessible, especially for the elderly or people with visual impairments.
To ensure that the people who need this feature the most don’t miss it, Oxygen OS even added an alert about Simple Mode that appears whenever the display size is adjusted to “large” for the first time. (The “large” display size option is new in Oxygen OS 15, in case you were trying to look for it on your existing OnePlus device.)
The latest version of Oxygen OS doesn’t just add Simple Mode, of course. Oxygen OS 15 also brings new AI features like AI Unblur, AI Reflection Eraser, and AI Detail Boost, among other things. In his review, Android Authority writer Rushil Agrawal described Oxygen OS 15 as a “refined and resurgent experience” that’s “cleaner, faster, and…familiar.” Hopefully features like Simple Mode will help new users familiarize themselves with their OnePlus device faster.
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