All you need to know about Xiaomi’s MIUI

Xiaomi's MIUI is a type of Android OS — Xiaomi phone and apps

MIUI was developed by the Xiaomi smartphone brand in the year 2010. MIUI otherwise called ‘Me You I’ was model after Google’s Android Operating System. It is a User Interface developed as a tweak form of the pure Android OS to add different features and visual styles to the base OS.

As an aftermarket (Model) operating system, MIUI comes with a lot of different variations that could not be found on the base Android OS. Therefore, this article will address the pros, cons and features of Xiaomi’s MIUI.

MIUI is a smartphone user-interface based on Android framework that works on Xiaomi smartphones currently. Xiaomi has continued to develop MIUI over the years. The latest version 10.1.3.0 was released to the global market on 12th November 2018.

It was designed as an alternative for Android Operating System. It is the main Stock ROM for Xiaomi smartphones.

MIUI is the user interface running on all Xiaomi devices — MI-User Interface

MIUI features

Applications: MIUI runs the APK type of Android application on its smartphones. Also, Google Play is the main store for Xiaomi MIUI smartphones launched outside of China. You can also use download managers for Android to download applications on this User-Interface. More so, for China users, there is a MI App Store from which they could download apps from. The development of MIUI software is recently upgraded from MIUI 11 to the latest MIUI 12 version.

MIUI Kernel type, model number, CPU e.t.c. — MIUI Specifications

Kernel Type: The Kernel type running on the MIUI is ‘Monolithic’ which is a modified Linux Kernel. Now you’d want to know what Kernel is. Smartphone Kernel is the center of operation on operating systems. It has control over the activities of applications and other tasks running on the Smartphone. Monolithic Kernel running on MIUI is one of the most common Kernel you can find on various Smartphones.

Xiaomi MIUI Pros

There are many features that comes with the MI User Interface that put it on a leverage against other UIs. Some of which was first introduced by MIUI itself.

Theme

MIUI comes with variety of themes to suit your taste. You can choose to change the phone’s skin type out of the large options of skin type available on the MIUI platform. The plus for MIUI users is that they have a dedicated theme store to download themes from. Unlike the pure Android OS that makes provision for theme packs only.

User Interface

MIUI is user-friendly. It comes with a beautiful UI that has the iOS kind of feel. If you had wanted an all-round virtually beautiful smartphone, MIUI is the best prescription for you.

Phone Dialer and Contacts

Xiaomi’s MIUI has made us realize how far the phone dialer and contact tabs can make our smartphones even smarter and leave a good impression at the same time. MIUI bring along a T9 predictive dialer which makes it easier for user to dial numbers with ease and a cool contact menu that supports email and web addresses for stored contact. You can also group your contacts for synchronization with Google contacts.

On-Screen Gesture support

MIUI screen gestures — MIUI screen gesture

Another of the pros of Xiaomi’s MIUI is its in-built On-Screen Gesture support. This makes it even more relevant as a smartphone model in the world. Xiaomi has made it simple for users to operate their phones without much fuss with On Screen Gesture support embedded in their custom ROM.

Xiaomi’s MIUI has took a bold step away from the normal pure Android. This step, however bold it could have been, has made a major leap on the smartphone industry.

Xiaomi’s MIUI cons

Xiaomi’s MIUI does not come without some sidelines which opens room for more improvements for the developers.

Language Support

Take its LanguageSupport for instance, the Xiaomi custom ROM only made provision for a handful of languages. This is a no call especially when compared with pure Android OS. But you can still get on top of this setback by downloading third party keyboards that support multiple languages.

Another setback on the MIUI system is its rather limiting Launcher.

MIUI Launcher

It is somehow sluggish how the MIUI handles widget and App Management. But if you are the type that doesn’t bother about self-styling, you do not have any problem as far as this is concerned.

There are great products running on the MIUI operating system. Though they are all Xiaomi products now, they are still one of the best alternatives for pure Android devices in the smartphone market. There are Smartphones like;