Xiaomi finally unveiled its latest mobile OS, the MIUI 7. The update, which is still in beta, will begin rolling out on Monday and will soon become available to a host of Xiaomi devices.
Xiaomi touts the new MIUI 7 as being loaded with a number of customization options along with interesting new features designed to enhance the user experience. There are even new features that focus on keeping the phone child protected while still allowing some features to be explored by young users.
UI THEMES
The new MIUI 7 features four new UI themes which include High Life, Ocean Breeze, Pink Blush and Rose. Depending on what theme is chosen, the theme in place automatically affects how graphic elements such as menus and icons would look like.
The Lock screen also gets personalized theme options which can even incorporate games. One example is Howzat which is a full cricket game.
"We've already made two cricket themes in India and they both did so well that we decided to do it again but step it up a notch," said Xiaomi.
The company now has more than 15,000 themes that the users can access in its store.
XXL TEXT
A customized theme may add highlights to the way a user looks at his phone but if the text is not readable, it fails to serve its purpose. For this reason, Xiaomi adds XXL Text to the new OS which totally changes the displayed text to appear in bigger fonts without affecting the other elements in the messaging page.
ENHANCED SPEED AND POWER
MIUI 7 features shortened app response times while enhancing the delivery of the rest of response times by up to 30 percent faster. The company also claims that with the new MIUI 7, devices can achieve power savings by up to 25 percent.
CHILD MODE AND BABY ALBUM
Device owners who have children would be glad to know that the MIUI 7 brings a feature that's designed specifically to make their phone child-protected. Dubbed Child Mode, the feature allows users to whitelist the apps that they can allow their child to use. Likewise, it also offers restrictive access to messages and email.
Users who are keen on looking at photos with babies in them would appreciate the new Baby Album feature brought by the new OS. It simply works by recognizing babies in the photos and then arranging them in groups, allowing for easier flipping through or for slideshow viewing on the phone's lockscreen stage.
Other notable features of MIUI 7 include an integrated Opera Max's data saving technology, Showtime, and sleep detection which is integrated with the Mi Band. This feature can detect when the user is asleep and can automatically trigger the band to be on a DND mode. The latter becomes disabled once the user wakes up.
MIUI 7 will soon be available in various Xiaomi devices that include the Redmi 1S, Redmi 2, Mi 3, Mi 4, Mi 4i, Redmi Note 3G and Note 4G. It will be initially available to the newly announced Xiaomi Redmi Note 2.
