Xiaomi has unveiled their newest version of their Android interface featuring updates to design, animations, dark mode, and a few other features to launch within two months.
Xiaomi‘s MIUI Android skin lived broadly in infamy for many years before its 10th iteration featuring a complete redesign in 2018, and since that modernising revision the interface has gained quite a following in the Android industry and is now a favourite of many (including myself). Fans love modern MIUI for many reasons, including a suite of genuinely great apps far superior to most alternatives including from Google, a system-wide dark mode, and a host of wonderful little improvements to UX over standard Android and most other skins.
Xiaomi followed up with MIUI 11 on Android 10 late last year, featuring generally minor revisions to the interface, improvements to dark mode and the Always-On-Display, battery life, and many other tweaks taking the Android skin from strength to strength.
Following a short week of teasing, Xiaomi has slightly jumped the typical annual gun and announced their latest MIUI 12 update barely over six months since the last major update – not that anybody's complaining. MIUI 12 appears to be much the same sort of iterative update as MIUI 11 was, tweaking little bits of the palace built atop the strong foundation of MIUI 10:
Dark Mode 2.0
Xiaomi's prime focus with MIUI 12 seems to be again further improving their system-wide Dark Mode offering, with a few new features to improve the experience:
- Wallpaper dimming will apparently dynamically alter but not ruin bright wallpapers with contrast and brightness adjustments when dark mode is enabled and in accordance with daylight to save eyes from strain
- Dynamic fonts, first introduced in MIUI 11, will be used to thin or thicken text as necessary for greater readability in dark mode (where it is white-on-black instead of black-on-white)
- Font contrast – the brightness of text – will also be dynamically adjusted according to light conditions to reduce glare
Graphic Visual Design
With MIUI 12 Xiaomi has committed to making phone settings more eminently useful and understandable by displaying data in various graphic forms where useful, such as detailed curve charts, block tables, and other visual styles.
Animations and Gestures
Xiaomi has claimed MIUI 12 to feature a swathe of revised animations as well as a bunch of new types of animation and some added related gestures:
- Animations throughout the interface have received improvements such as smoother orientation switching, transitions between menus, opening and closing apps, etc…
- The interface has received new animations to provide greater feedback to user inputs, such as ripples outward when deleting apps off the homescreen, or differences in the way apps and services are opened being reflected in their animations (ie. inertia when swiping home)
- Notifications from supported apps can be swiped down on to pop out a full app preview to, for instance, respond to a Whatsapp message rather than merely providing an in-line reply function
Live Planetary Wallpapers
Xiaomi has introduced a new type of ‘Super Wallpaper' in MIUI 12 which feature live renderings of the planets Earth and Mars based on real astrophotography data which will be moved around and panned in response to your gestures on the home screen.
Enhanced Security
With MIUI 12 Xiaomi is attempting to be more focused on user security and privacy than ever before:
- All apps when asking permissions will now have the option to be allowed only that one time, or only while the apps are open, regardless of whether the apps specifically ask for any level of permanence
- MIUI 12 will record and allow users to see how and when apps access certain data and permissions
- Xiaomi will apparently remove certain EXIF data from images before they are shared for greater privacy and safety
Xiao AI Calling
Xiaomi claims to have been developing and testing their own AI calling service which will act much like Google's Assistant-powered call answering and filtering service by answering calls with an AI. This feature is likely to be limited to China.
Launch Date and Supported Devices
Xiaomi has already announced multiple devices which MIUI 12 is guaranteed to reach by the end of June, some of which a Beta is currently available for in China:
First batch
- Mi 10 Pro
- Mi 10
- Mi 10 ‘Youth Edition'
- Mi 9 Pro
- Redmi K30 Pro
- Redmi K30 (Poco X2)
- Redmi K20 Pro (Mi 9T Pro)
- Redmi K20 (Mi 9T)
Second batch
- Mi Mix 3
- Mi 8 series
- Redmi Note 8 Pro
- Redmi Note 8
- Redmi Note 7 Pro
- Redmi Note 7
Third batch
- Mi Mix 2
- Mi CC9 Pro
- Mi CC9
- Mi CC9e
- Redmi 8
- Redmi 8A
- Redmi 7
- Redmi 7A
Don't be too worried if your Xiaomi device was launch in the last year but isn't listed above, Xiaomi is likely to get around to it at some point, just not at top priority.
Stay tuned to Talk Android for all the details on the new MIUI 12 update in a review when it goes live in only a month or two!
