MIUI is, as the name suggests, a User Interface. MIUI is pronounced as “My UI” or “Me UI” and is used majorly by the brand Xiaomi in it’s latest phones, for instance, the Mi3, who’s sales are rocking the Indian market. The phone itself features terrific specs for the price, but another major factr that gives the sales a boost is the User Interface offered by MIUI.
MIUI has often been used in other phones, along with CyanogenMod. If you look it up, MIUI has already been ported to phones like Nexus One, 4, or other phones like Xperia phones or HTC phones. The main point in installing this UI was that this is faster, lighter and cooler. Why so? It is because this MIUI isn’t just a UI, but a total transformation of the phone. It isn’t just a ROM with spectacular looks, but a total transformation pack with added features and removed scam wares.
What does MIUI have for me?
Looks
First of all, MIUI has the main thing that this generation wants – looks! It looks cooler when it is on your phone. But it isn’t just looks that make people install MIUI on their smartphones! The other reasons include added customizability and ease of access to many features of the smartphones. Oh yes, and also the security!
Customizability
MIUI is fairly customizable. This is because the ROM comes preloaded with a theme chooser, which was also featured by CyanogenMod. This theme chooser allows you to download themes off the server and then install it on your own phone. This way, you will not need to download a ROM for each theme, or a theme for each ROM from the Google App Store. Makes life a hell lot easier! Moreover, it doesn’t only change the theme of the main UI, but is also capable of making changes to the lock screen as well as the Notification bar – something that stock Android cannot do, as of yet.
Security
Apart from that, the MIUI also has some security add ons preinstalled. These security add ons include a firewall and a malware detector. Also an Antivirus. It seems as if the UI tries its very best to not let a Virus approach your phone and then infect it. The Security App also has a Cleaner app in-built with it, which is powered by the well known Clean Master. You now have no need to install any third party bloatware for this purpose.
Ease of Access
But the best reason for installing MIUI is the ease of access. Just like iOS has everything on pages in the app drawer, MIUI has everything on the home screen, and doesn’t posses any Menu for listing all the apps inside the device. iOS does not sport a Home Screen, similarly MIUI doesn’t have an App Drawer.
This way, the user is less tangled between the both and can keep apps according to his or her choice and ease of access. But it isn’t wrong to consider MIUI the bettered version of iOS, since people miss the home screen widgets on iOS. In MIUI, the widgets and the Apps can stay together, side by side.
Interactive Toggles
MIUI was there way before Android launched it’s toggle switches. Jellybean version of Android featured a new system of toggles where most of the toggles were there on a single page, which was separated from the notifications. People thought this was new, but well, the developers knew that this was just another stolen idea. Yes, it indeed isn’t wrong to say that it was a stolen idea. MIUI already had this system of toggle switches, from way before Jellybean was launched. Probably even before ICS was launched! But if someone thinks that Jellybean’s single page toggles can match MIUI’s, then they are very mistaken. This is not so. Even if Android has the single page toggles, it misses another thing, which is the customizability of those toggles. What if people want bigger toggles? What if people do not want those toggles but want their own customized ones?
In MIUI, all the toggles are customizable. The user can choose what should be on the toggle page and what should not. Moreover, in MIUI, you need not press that corner button to move from Notifications to Toggles, but instead just swipe to the left to reveal the toggles. Another factor which makes life easier! But even more so, unlike Android’s brightness toggle, which needs to be pressed to reveal the slider, MIUI has the slider preloaded into the toggle page. This way, all people need to do is slide the slider left to right to change brightness instead of pressing a button before doing so.
Easy Widgets
One of the most loved things about MIUI are its widgets. The widgets are not the stock Android widgets but MIUI’s self widgets. They can be downloaded from the theme chooser as well.
MIUI Store
The MIUI store is the place from where you download the themes, the add ons and the widgets. MIUI really did make it easier for everyone by including a separate store, since everything would have been really muddy in case it had all been loaded on to the Google App Store. Or it would have taken a lot of effort if you had to go to the website to download each of the themes, widgets or add-ons.
No mention about the quantity, as all the entries are user submitted, there are tons of themes and widgets available for all types of category. It is up to the user to select their desired one to download and wear it.
Why should I avoid MIUI?
Crashes
Since MIUI was not made by a big name company like Google, it will or might have frequent crashes. These crashes can be a bit of a pain many times since they are not curable until and unless the makers or the developers release an update. But again, the developers aren’t in a full-time job so they might be a bit clumsy in doing so.
Lag
MIUI does lag on most phones. Even though on the Xiaomi MI3 it ran as smooth as silk, on other phones, it might lag. The MIUI was customized to match Xiaomi Mi3, which is precisely the reason it did not lag at all on that phone. But on other phones, where it was not made according to the customizability, the UI might lag and might even be unbearable.
Few Bloatware
Since MIUI was made in China, the UI also has a few Chinese applications pre-installed. Though these can be ignored, we cannot ignore the very fact that they are very much present and existing. Oh yes, did we mention that they can often be considered spam or scam ware?
Rooting
Yes, the Xiaomi MI3 does have the root boot loader on the official website. But if you did not notice, the only version of the unlocked boot loader present is in the Chinese version. Only the Chinese region of the boot loader has received an unlock. Therefore, if you install it on a phone from another region, there is no denying that it will work, but with added Chinese apps here and there. The SIM card might have a few problems in being registered in the phone too, which is yet another problem. But oh of course, if you do not own a Xiaomi and own another phone on which you are trying to install MIUI, you needn’t worry about such problems. This is because on the other phone that you own, the ROM isn’t used as a primary for your device by the brand. You are installing it unofficially, which means that you can make as many changes to it as possible. And most of the time, the unofficial MIUI comes preloaded with a root.
CyanogenMod
If you are installing MIUI on any other phone apart from Xiaomi MI3, you need to install CyanogenMod first. Installing CyanogenMod is a risky process, which might brick your phone. CyanogenMod is actually the unofficial version of stock Android, which is ported by developers to their own phones later on. Even CyanogenMod has an official or unofficial tag! CM is now a trademark which releases CyanogenMod for devices that it likes, and the rest of them have to port it to their own devices.
But of course, each of the phones that run CyanogenMod have a void warranty. Hence, if you want to install MIUI on another phone, you need to forget about your warranty. As long as you try not to break it, it is fine.
Battery Drain Problems
One of the major errors of MIUI on MI3 during the first few devices sold was the Battery Drain Problem. But Xiaomi soon pushed out an update which fixed this problem. This was thanks to the experienced dev team of Xiaomi. But what about the inexperienced unofficial developers which port MIUI to other phones? Yes, indeed. The phones might never get an update for the drain problem.
Final Verdict
These were a few factors to be considered before installing MIUI on your handset. Of course, installing MIUI on every handset out there is not possible. Even if it is, you need to know about the UI itself before installing it, right? Therefore, we hope this guide helped you in knowing about the MIUI. Let me know if I missed anything or you want it to be covered in the comments. Cheers 🙂