MIUI 9 Nearly Done

Xiaomi’s upcoming Android OS skin MIUI 9 will reportedly debut on the Xiaomi Mi 6 smartphone, according to a recent admin post on the official MIUI forums in China. The source further confirmed that the development on MIUI 9 is almost complete following more than a month of intensive work by Xiaomi’s engineers, which means that the update should be ready for a rollout according to the official schedule. Xiaomi’s Vice President of Marketing had previously shared various details regarding the update and confirmed that MIUI 9 will be released by mid-August, if not sooner.

Xiaomi’s ongoing proprietary skin for Android OS, MIUI 8, has been around since June 2016, and covers a wide variety of Android OS versions, ranging from Android 4.4.4 KitKat to Android Nougat. According to previous reports, the upcoming MIUI 9 skin won’t introduce too many changes to the user interface, but nevertheless, the update is expected to include a series of redesigned icons and a handful of new features such as a Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode, as well as a Split Screen mode, both of which should facilitate multitasking. The software package should also introduce a screen recording function, and additionally, it’s likely that the upcoming MIUI 9 update will further improve device performance and optimize battery life.

Not much else is known about what MIUI 9 will have in store for its users, but according to the aforementioned admin on the MIUI forums, Xiaomi Mi 6 owners will be the first to experience the upcoming update on their devices in the following weeks and no later than August 16. The source added that MIUI 9 will continue to expand and reach other, unspecified Xiaomi smartphone models later on, though no other details regarding the update’s availability on these devices have been confirmed so far. The Mi 6 was released this April running Android 7.1.1 Nougat with MIUI 8.0 on top, and it is currently the company’s most advanced smartphone, featuring the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip (SoC), 6GB of RAM, and 64GB or 128GB of onboard memory. The back of the device accommodates a dual camera setup comprising two 12-megapixel sensors with 4-axis optical image stabilization (OIS), and in China, the smartphone can be acquired either with a ceramic or glass body.