Oppo unveiled ColorOS 17 on September 17 at its developer conference in Zhuhai, alongside the Oppo Find X10 series, the OnePlus 16, and the Oppo Watch S2. The software runs on Android 17 and carries a new visual layer Oppo calls Fluid Design. It is built almost entirely out of frosted glass, translucent panels, and a floating navigation bar that stretches and bounces when you touch it.
Oppo’s own design director said this would not happen. Chen Xi posted on Weibo in June that ColorOS 17 would skip a major redesign and focus on “basic user experience” improvements instead. He pointed directly at Apple’s Liquid Glass design language, the one Apple introduced with iOS 26 and carried into iOS 27, and said some competitors might chase that look. Oppo, he said, would not.
Oppo’s Design Chief Denied This Exact Redesign in June
Chen Xi’s statement was specific, no big redesign. New features pushed back, possibly to a ColorOS 17.1 or 17.5 update later on. Some rivals might copy Liquid Glass but Oppo would hold off.
The denial arrived at an odd moment for Oppo specifically. Its own Find X9 Ultra, running ColorOS 16, had already drawn comparisons to an “almost carbon-copy of the latest iPhones” from reviewers. Chen Xi’s post read like an attempt to claim credit for restraint on the next release, after the last one had already borrowed the look.
Leaks describing a design Oppo called “liquid acrylic” surfaced by August, two months after the Weibo post. A promotional video landed just ahead of the September 17 launch showing exactly what those leaks described: glass, blur, and light effects layered across the entire interface.
Oppo attached its visual overhaul to three separate engine names, each carrying its own performance claim.
Strip away the branding and what is left is frosted glass, progressive blur, contour glow, and a floating island navigation bar that now spans system apps including Files, Photos, Phone Manager, Compass, and Notes. Interface elements stretch and compress when tapped, then bounce back into place. That is the same visual grammar Apple introduced with Liquid Glass, running under a different set of proper nouns.
Every Major Android Skin Made the Same Move This Month
Oppo is not chasing this look alone, and it was not even first this month. Vivo unveiled OriginOS 7 one day earlier, on September 16, built around what it calls multi-layered translucent surfaces across panels, widgets, and cards.
- Vivo OriginOS 7: translucent surfaces and dynamic physics, unveiled September 16
- Xiaomi HyperOS 4: a Liquid Glass style redesign reportedly in progress
- Realme UI 7.0: announced with a “Light Glass Design” built around translucent elements
Each of these companies designs its own hardware and writes its own software from the ground up. None of them needed Apple’s interface to sell a phone this year. They reached for it anyway, in the same month, under different names for the same blur.
iOS 26 launched Liquid Glass to complaints about text legibility and accessibility, and iOS 27 added a slider that lets users tone down the transparency Oppo is now racing to copy. ColorOS 17 reaches the Find X10 series, the OnePlus 16, and the Oppo Watch S2 first, then expands to more than 130 device models across Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme in stages between October 8 and December 2026.
