Xiaomi has finally updated its mobile software skin, meaning that officially, Xiaomi now fully supports Android Nougat 7.0 for its devices. The UI was earlier presented at an event that was held in Beijing as a preview for the new software.
The company has released few new features with the upgrade in software, which include image search, smart assistant as well as the new smart app launcher. Xiaomi has included better responsiveness and resource allocation for the usage of apps that now launch must faster. The company has unveiled the Mi 5X smartphone, which will be the first recipient of the new upgrade. Apart from introducing its new OS and smartphone, the company also showed off its entrant in the smart speaker race – the Mi AI Speaker.
MIUI 9 will gradually roll out to other handsets made by the company. Delving into the finer points of its new features, Image Search is Xiaomi’s version of Apple’s search feature on its iPhone, but instead, Xiaomi is using it only for images. Users will be able to search for images based on location, people, expressions, dates, events and so on. Even if images are inside conversations, the phone will be able to pick them up. Smart Assistant is essentially Xiaomi’s take on the Google Assistant that can search for anything inside the phone and also helps the user in making notes and fix schedules.
The Smart Launcher feature allows for users to take content on the screen that is relevant to specific apps in the phone that can be launched. For example, if users are talking about a location, the Maps app will be able to pull information regarding the location. If they are talking about an author, the search assistant will be able to pull up more information regarding the author as well, just like Google Now on tap.
The new MIUI 9 will be made available to the Chinese consumers first. With regard to a global release of the software and its features, there has not been a date yet confirmed by the company. But hopefully, it should be updated within the next few weeks or so. Initial reactions to the upgrade in software show that overall performance has been improved. There is now less lag in the interface navigating. There is also multi-window functionality included that was missing in the earlier iteration of MIUI 9. It has been reported that so far, the ROM for MIUI will be included for Xiaomi Mi MIX, Mi Note 2, Mi 5, Mi 5s, Mi 5s Plus, Mi 5c, Mi Max 2, Mi Max, Mi 4S, Mi 4c, Mi Note Pro, and Redmi 4X from August 25. Other handsets in the company’s portfolio should be getting it sometime around September.