At an event in Delhi, India today, Xiaomi unveiled the latest version of its OS, MIUI 7, for its devices. The latest version of the company’s skin comes with a number of new features and comes with a new tagline: Yours by design. Made for India.
New System UI themes
The latest version of MIUI will come with 5 different system UIs, of which 4 are completely new: Pink Blush, Rosê, Ocean Breeze, and High Life. The first two are based on different shades of pink, while Ocean Breeze features a blue color palette. The High Life system UI theme features a predominately black theme.
In addition, Xiaomi has focused on themes with MIUI 7, which now allows themes to incorporate games on your lock screen with intuitive password protection features. The lock screen has received special emphasis from Xiaomi and comes with ‘Daily lock screen,’ which automatically displays random beautiful images on your lockscreen. The images have been copyrighted by Xiaomi so they won’t be available through other sources.
Besides the new themes and system UIs, Xiaomi has optimised MIUI 7 for faster system performance and better battery life. The company claims that MIUI 7 is up to 30 percent faster in opening apps and also offers up to 10 percent of better battery life in daily usage thanks to a reduction in power usage of modem and restricting the CPU usage of apps running in the background.
Xiaomi is also bringing its highly praised system wide data saving feature, dubbed Data Saver, found in the Chinese variant of its ROM to all the markets where it sells its devices with the MIUI 7. Using Opera’s technology in the backend, MIUI 7 will be able to reduce data usage across all apps you use, including YouTube, Chrome, WhatsApp, and others.
The new Auto DND feature in MIUI 7 will work in tandem with the company’s Mi Fit band to automatically silence your phone when you go to sleep. There is also an option to block apps from displaying notifications on the notification bar.
Showtime
Another new feature in MIUI 7 is Showtime, which is basically an advanced version of video ringtones. Instead of simply displaying the caller’s phone number and name, Showtime will display a call video that has been shot by the caller. The videos can only be 5 seconds long and requires that both the caller and the receiving party are friends through their Mi account.
Smart Filter, Quick OTP & Visual IVR
Other notable new features in MIUI 7 that have been developed specifically for India, including Smart SMS filter, Quick OTP and Visual IVR. The former will automatically hide all spam and other junk SMSes from your inbox, while Quick OTP will highlight the one time transaction password that you receive while doing a transaction through your Debit or Credit card in the country. Visual IVR, on the other hand, will display the IVR menu directly on your phone’s screen when you call a helpline number.
XXL font
To make the skin easier to use for people with poor vision, Xiaomi has included an XXL font option in MIUI 7. Unlike other OEMs, switching to the XXL font will not only increase the font size, but also scale the UI properly to make sure that texts are not cut out across the OS.
The beta of MIUI 7 will be released on August 24 for all the device that Xiaomi have sold in India until now, which includes the Mi 4, Mi 3, Mi 4i, Redmi 1S, Redmi 2, Redmi Note 3G, and Redmi Note 4G.
