Xiaomi announces MIUI 9 Global ROM for India, claims it's as fast as stock Android's​

Xiaomi announces MIUI 9 Global ROM for India, claims it's as fast as stock Android
Picture source India today Site.




"People have this perception that stock Android is a lot faster - with better performance - than MIUI. That was true three years ago. But, now it's not. We measure it in our lab tests. Now MIUI performance is about the same -- as stock Android -- if not better," a Xiaomi spokesperson said while speaking exclusively with India Today Tech, a day ahead of announcing the MIUI 9 Global ROM for India. "With MIUI 9, we've finally reached at par with stock Android. But we still want to do better," the spokesperson added.

Xiaomi has always been more than vocal about the fact that "we don't update a phone just to change an Android version number. But, actually it has to make the phone better." Take the newly announced MIUI 9 update for instance. Rolled out in beta globally on August 11, with a stable version launching this Friday (November 3) for the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2, the MIUI 9 update is said to offer explosively fast app launch times on the back of "optimised haptic feedback, intelligent CPU acceleration and optimised thread scheduling."

MIUI 9 is as fast as stock Android: Xiaomi

"I've seen some reviews where people say that this device has worse hardware than a better equipped Redmi device, but because it has stock Android, it's faster: that's objectively not true," the spokesperson reiterated.

Xiaomi measures this in two ways. The first is by comparing app launch times. "We compared it with Samsung, and found we're faster than TouchWiz. We also did a comparison of Redmi Note 4 with the Mi A1 because basically they're the same hardware: one on MIUI 9 and another on stock Android. In terms of app launch times, we found it's about the same."

Rolled out in beta globally on August 11, with a stable version launching this Friday (November 3) for the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2, the MIUI 9 update is said to offer explosively fast app launch times

Xiaomi's second 'objective' test involves measuring lags - on a phone -- over a long period of time - for users to notice -- with both first party and third party apps. "We're faster than TouchWiz and when you compare stock Android with MIUI 9, over the course of 6 hours, the Mi A1 had about 86.5 seconds of accumulated lag, for the Redmi Note 4 it was about 90 seconds," the spokesperson said adding that three years of performance improvements later, MIUI is now at par with stock Android, if not better.

Xiaomi's custom ROM, aka MIUI, although it offers a seamless experience across the board, is known for some heavy skinning on top of Android, something that hard-core geeks don't really appreciate. Also, because there's third-party skinning involved -- and because Xiaomi likes to update each and every device in its portfolio more or less on similar lines -- the fact that users have to wait longer for updates, doesn't go down well with many. That besides the fact that the company is known to kill some key Android features just so it can maintain uniformity across its devices is a subject of much debate. The MIUI 9 update is a little different.

Feature-wise MIUI 9 is at par with stock Android: Xiaomi

Xiaomi is touting three key features -- in addition to fast app launch times -- that set the MIUI 9 apart from its predecessor, the MIUI 8:

-- Universal search: a powerful search engine on a Xiaomi phone that can differentiate your image like you do by typing in keywords.

-- Dynamic resource allocation: to allocate priority to in-use apps to let you enjoy a fluent experience, on basis of critical thinking algorithm.

-- Smart assistant: the easiest way to find anything and almost everything at your will.

MIUI 9 has a ton of features on top of Android, according to Xiaomi. "I think if you were to complain about feature differences between MIUI and stock Android, the biggest thing that people complain about is notifications. So in MIUI 9, the notifications are basically the same as stock Android. We support multiple styles of notifications including bundled notifications from an app, quick reply, and one-finger swipe to expand."

"It may be designed MIUI-like, but feature wise it's on par with stock Android," the spokesperson asserted.

The biggest respite for users of something as gigantic as the Mi Mix 2 perhaps will be the addition of split-screen multitasking. A split screen multitasking feature will indeed make a lot of sense on a 6.44-inch phablet. Question is why the feature wasn't available in the Mi Max 2 out-of-the-box in the first place because one of the headlining features of Android Nougat is split-screen multi-tasking. Still, the Xiaomi phone running Android Nougat-based software didn't ship with the feature out-of-the-box. Xiaomi, on its part, said the feature wasn't ready for prime-time back then. It is now.

"We've added split-screen to every device with MIUI 9 on Android N and above. It's the same split screen API from stock Android. We made one slight improvement where if you want to switch the app that's on the bottom to the top, you'll just have to double tap the bar in the middle: which makes it a little easier to use."

Xiaomi has also added a few other interesting nuggets in MIUI 9, some backed by artificial intelligence. "We've added a smart photo editor using on-device AI that lets you hide people in the background of a photo that you've clicked. It gives you the power of Photoshop on your phone. Obviously, if you were to spend hours in Photoshop, it would be of higher quality but on a phone screen really you won't be able to tell the difference. It's like giving people hundreds of dollars worth of photo-editing software for free."

We update our phones more than anybody else: Xiaomi

All said and done, MIUI 9 is still based on Android Nougat and not Android Oreo. When Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 4 in India in January, the phone shipped with Android Marshmallow (based MIUI 8). In early August, the phone started receiving the Android 7.0 Nougat update (MIUI 8.5) alongside the July Android security patch. Interestingly, the Redmi Note 4 -- as per a Xiaomi listing -- isn't scheduled to get Android 7.1 although it will be updated to MIUI 9. If Xiaomi's listing is to be gone by, chances are the Redmi Note 4 may be stuck with Android 7.0 for the rest of its life. To expect an Android Oreo upgrade from it would be wishful thinking.

MIUI 9 has a ton of features on top of Android, according to Xiaomi

Just so you know, Xiaomi's phones are in no way inadequate -- or inferior -- in software standards to counterparts. It's just that Xiaomi operates in a slightly different manner. Xiaomi doesn't toil with Android AOSP APIs. Rather, the company adds its own features on top of the AOSP. A lot of this happens at the ground level which is why -- for most users -- there would generally be very little visible difference between a Marshmallow-based MIUI and a Nougat-based MIUI.

A lot of this also happens without changing an Android version. It is the MIUI version that one would see changing at all times, and going by Xiaomi's history, the company is in the habit of changing that way too frequently. This also helps Xiaomi to keep updating all its phones no matter the release window.

"Some people complain about updates with MIUI. But actually we update our phones more than anybody else. MIUI 9 is coming to the Mi 2 which was launched in 2012. In terms of security, you might have heard of the WPA 2 Wi-Fi issue: it's a minor issue but we are going to put the fix to it on almost all our devices with MIUI 9 including the Mi 2. The same isn't true for all Google devices," the spokesperson said.

Having said that, there's still an audience, and a sizable one at that that would still take Android Nougat over Marshmallow and it would want it as quickly as possible. Even Xiaomi is aware of the fact, which is why it launched the Mi A1 in India recently. Not only will the Mi A1 pack in the latest and greatest in Android at all times, it will also be the closest thing next to what a certain Google Pixel has to offer at the end of the day: unadulterated software.

The Mi A1, for your reference, runs stock Android 7.1.2 Nougat out-of-the-box and will be updated to the recently announced Android Oreo by the end of this year, Xiaomi has confirmed. Xiaomi (and Google), in fact, have gone so far as to say that the Mi A1 will also be getting Android P -- or whatever Google decides to call the Android O successor -- when it launches later next year.

As for folks who fancy MIUI, the MIU 9 stable version will be rolled out on Friday (November 3) to the Redmi Note 4, Mi Mix 2 and Mi Max 2. MIUI 9 stable version for the rest of the eligible Xiaomi phones will be rolled out by the end of this month.

In all, MIUI 9 will be rolling out to the following Xiaomi smartphones:

Mi MIX 2, Mi Note 3, Mi 6, Mi Max 2, Redmi Note 4, Redmi Note 4X, Redmi Note 5A, Redmi 4, Redmi 4X, Redmi Y1, Redmi Y1 Lite, Mi MIX, Mi Note 2, Mi 5, Mi 5s, Mi 5s Plus, Mi Max, Mi Max Prime, Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3, Redmi 3S, Redmi 3S Prime, Redmi 4, Redmi 4A, Mi Note, Mi 4i, Redmi 2, Redmi 2 Prime, Redmi Note 4G Prime, Redmi Note 2, Mi 4, Redmi Note 4G, Mi 3, Mi 2M.

 @buzzfreenews