OnePlus Is Replacing Its Alert Slider With a Button on Upcoming Phones

OnePlus said Monday that its signature Alert Slider feature is being transitioned into a button, much like Apple did when it replaced a similar feature with the Action button starting with the iPhone 15 Pro.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau discussed the change in a community blog post, mentioning that the change is coming after three years of discussion toward finding a way to get the alert slider to do more. Lau also referenced that the company heard community backlash when the OnePlus 10T omitted the feature in 2022, and that the new button will still allow for silencing a phone without waking it up.

“I know this is a big change. And I know it’s not easy to accept. The Alert Slider holds a special place in the hearts of our Community, and we don’t take that lightly,” Lau said in the blog post.

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While the OnePlus community has been known to be protective of the phone’s design, customizable buttons are now common across new Android phones and the iPhone. Apple’s $599 iPhone 16E is the lowest-cost iPhone that includes a customizable Action button, and Samsung’s $800 Galaxy S25 includes a side button that can also be mapped to specific actions or features.

Lau didn’t announce any new phones that will include a customizable button instead of the Alert Slider, but the preemptive announcement appears to be positioned to get ahead of reactions to that change whenever it does arrive. OnePlus typically sticks to annual releases in the winter for its new phones, but the company might debut the button on the phone with a less predictable release cadence, like its lower-cost Nord series.