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Today Xiaomi announced the 2018 edition of its MIUI for international markets after being introduced in China last week. The MIUI 10 will initially roll-out in beta starting next week to a plenty of Mi smartphones and the final build will be available in September. This announcement was made earlier today at an event in India, where the entry-level Redmi Y2 was also made official for the South Asian market. The company has made several significant improvements and additions to its proprietary user interface with the global version taking several of them from the previously announced Chinese version. The MIUI 10 interface has been designed for newer 18:9 (2:1) and taller displays to make use of the extra space and it now resembles Android P, given the inclusion of navigation gestures and other UI elements.
Xiaomi’s in-house software skin will be made available to a long list of smartphones, many of which are several generations old, though, the roll-out of MIUI 10 to older devices doesn’t necessarily warrant an update to the Android version as well. Nevertheless, the Chinese company today added a handful of more devices – the Redmi Y2, Redmi Y1 Lite, and the Redmi Y1 – to the already lengthy list announced during its debut in China. Among all the features announced for the MIUI 10, AI seems to hold a prominent spot with it being leveraged at system-level to enable quite a few features. One of them is AI Portrait Mode that lets even the older phones sporting single cameras to get the background defocus effect using machine learning and AI, something similar to what Google Pixel 2 series does. However, Xiaomi’s implementation will be first enabled for the front camera while the rear camera will get it at a later stage. The company intends to make its UI faster by at least 10 percent and for this AI has been used once again. The ROM will learn and adapt to the user behavior to anticipate their next action and pre-load the app in advance, thereby reducing load time.
Many nature-inspired notification sounds and ambient noises have been including in the new MIUI 10. The quick settings menu has also been redesigned to look similar to that of Android P with big and bolder icons having a blue tint. Navigating through a phone running MIUI 10 may prove to be a modest learning curve since the company has used a couple of new gestures. Like, to go back, a small swipe from the left edge will do the job, while switching to the previous app requires a longer swipe from the same spot. For the Indian market, Xiaomi’s software skin will come enabled with Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) letting the users have an app-like experience while accessing websites of local services like Flipkart Lite, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, OLA, OYO, and many more. The company has partnered with Paytm allowing users to scan Paytm QR codes from within the phone’s camera app, while the Mi Music and Mi Video apps will also be refreshed with this update. Xiaomi may make similar local partnerships to bring more such features and services in the markets where MIUI will soon be rolled out.
