Xiaomi may unveil the latest version of its customized OS, MIUI 7 based on Lollipop 5.1 on August 16, if a report is to be believed by Chinese website My Drivers. And why this becomes special ? Because MIUI is perhaps what gives Xiaomi edge over other Android brands (even the likes of Samsung), and puts the company closer to Apple.
There are no official announcements yet by the company but given the fact that company usually announces its deals, promotions and discounts on its offerings during this time and MIUI6 was also launched on August 16 last year, it is highly likely we may see MIUI 7 on the same date or at least around it.
The predecessor MIUI 6 was based on Lollipop 5 and currently features in all the major smartphones of Xiaomi like Mi, Mi 4, Mi4i, Redmi Note etc. Since Lollipop 5.1 has been around for quite some time now, it was about time for Xiaomi to bring the improved version of MIUI which the company had promised, would be loaded with a wider range of utilitarian features to enhance the user experience.
However what exactly would be those new features and improvements apart from the regular bug fixes is yet to be seen. This becomes all the more anticipated, considering MIUI’s reputation of bringing novel features on board which are totally different to stock android.
For instance, MIUI 6 did not feature the customary app drawer common to all android devices and came up with a Permissions Manager — which was so far only seen in the open source firmware Cyanogen Mod, another popular and robust alternative to the stock Android.
From being a mere android firmware developer to being an internationally renowned manufacturer of smartphones and other products, Xiaomi has certainly come a long way.
Especially its customized OS MIUI, which is unanimously loved by its users due to the simple yet elegant interface and smart tweaks made by Xiaomi. And yes, even though it pretty much borrows a lot from iOS, experts at various levels have labelled MIUI as the closes Android competitor to iOS.
This is in stark contrast to other customized OS skins/firmware/nonsenseware which are often forced by OEM’s into their smartphones and generally make things more complicated for users.
