Table of contents:
- Animations, icons and fonts: the most visual novelty
- Dark mode reaches all parts of the system
- Redesigned system applications
- Settings are now better organized
- Customizable Always On Display
- Game Turbo, the tool that promises to improve gaming performance
- My Share to share files and print documents
- News that drink from Android 10
- What is to come
MIUI 11 is the latest version of Xiaomi's customization layer. Although the update was officially launched a few weeks ago, the truth is that today there are terminals that have not yet received the latest Xiaomi cake. Regarding the differences of MIUI 11 with respect to MIUI 10, the company announced a series of news that would arrive in the final version of the eleventh iteration of the system. But, what news does it really present? We see it.
Animations, icons and fonts: the most visual novelty
In the visual section, Xiaomi has introduced a series of improvements aimed at further polishing the experience presented with MIUI 10. It is not a radical change, since most of the interface elements are identical to those of the previous iteration, but it does come to appreciate a tangible change.
The first novelty comes from the hand of the animations. Unlocking the phone, accessing multitasking or exiting an app now feels much more fluid. To this is added the redesign of some animations, which are inherited from Material Design.
Another novelty that comes with MIUI 11 is based on the redesign of the icons and system fonts. The first is limited to some applications, such as the Gallery, the Camera, the Calendar or the Messages, and the main difference is found in the arrangement of colors and size: now they are much larger.
As for the fonts, although Xiaomi has kept the original font of the system, it has decided to increase its size. We can also set videos as wallpapers.
Dark mode reaches all parts of the system
Or almost all. With MIUI 11, a large number of system applications support native dark mode. Compass, Calculator, Recorder, File manager, Calendar…
Not only that. Now the system makes its API compatible with that of Android 10. This means that the system will apply the dark mode automatically in all those applications compatible with this mode, such as Instagram, Play Store or YouTube.
Redesigned system applications
Cleaner, Calculator and Notes are some of the applications that have been redesigned with MIUI 11. The redesign, unfortunately, is dedicated to polishing some aspects of the interface and adding added functions.
This is the case of Notes, which now allows you to enter voice notes within text notes to enrich the annotations that we make within the application. The Settings application has also undergone a facelift, although we will talk about the latter below.
Another application that has been completely redesigned is Tasks. Now we can enable a bar on one of the sides of the screen to perform actions related to productivity: create text and voice notes, set reminders…
Special mention to File Manager, which now has thumbnails and supports file viewing without dependency on other applications.
Settings are now better organized
The order in the MIUI 10 settings is something that is conspicuous by its absence. For this same reason, Xiaomi has decided to completely redesign the Settings application. The most significant change has to do with the order of the settings: now everything has a meaning and an order within the interface.
Actions as basic as changing the SIM card PIN are now within a few taps on the screen. The company has also combined all the settings that are related to each other to improve its location within the application: the connection settings on the one hand, the multimedia configuration on the other and in the same way with the rest of the sections.
Customizable Always On Display
A feature that unfortunately will not reach all Xiaomi devices, as it is currently limited to those that have an AMOLED screen.
From the Lock screen options we can modify the appearance of the Always On screen to our liking. From the type of clock to the position of the notifications and the appearance of the personalized text. The latter, by the way, can be freely modified: font type, text position, font size, main color…
Game Turbo, the tool that promises to improve gaming performance
In response to GPU Turbo from Huawei, Xiaomi has launched Game Turbo, a functionality that we can activate from the settings and that promises to improve the performance of those games compatible with this mode.
We can also restrict notifications, force the orientation of the screen, limit some applications in memory and block the use of physical and touch buttons to avoid accidental presses.
My Share to share files and print documents
Two of the functionalities that Xiaomi announced with great fanfare are based on Mi Share and the possibility of connecting to printers remotely to print documents and images in a couple of taps.
Broadly speaking, Mi Share traces the characteristics of Apple's AirDrop: send files in a few seconds with other Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo. The second functionality allows us to print any item without even resorting to third-party applications.
News that drink from Android 10
Although most versions of MIUI 11 are currently based on Android 9 Pie, the truth is that the system inherits part of the novelties of Android 10.
News such as quick responses that allow us to interact with system notifications in an intelligent way or Digital Wellbeing, an application that tells us the time we spend within the applications. A Parental Control rule has also been introduced that allows us to control any device in the house, including the main one, from the mobile phone.
What is to come
Unfortunately Xiaomi has decided to leave some news in the pipeline that is supposed to arrive in the future.
The first has to do with the implementation of Android 10 as the base system. The rest of the news are related to the integration of an application drawer in the purest Android Stock or OS S style, a mode that allows us to send a message with our location to our trusted contacts in case of emergency.
