All you need to know: 10 new features on MIUI 7

After 5 years running, Xiaomi has made its global announcement of MIUI 7 yesterday. With its humble beginnings back in 2010, the MIUI custom ROM has grown with over 150 Million users and is supported by a team of 750 people.

While the interface looks the same as the current MIUI 6, the new version offers more customisation and it gets smarter with a several intelligent tweaks. Read on for the 10 new features after the break.

More Personalised Themes

Your smart phone is a personal device and MIUI has been known for its wide array of radical customisable themes. On MIUI 7, they are really pushing the themes up a notch with greater focus on design details. With Muse, a new theme creator, you can design new interfaces with animations including the lock screen like never before. And this is done without the complicated coding.

Showtime – Video Caller ID

Receiving phone calls can be made more interesting especially when it’s from your loved ones. Instead of having a static photo, you can change this to a 5 second looping video.

Auto DND with Mi Band

If you have tons of instant message groups and social media accounts, your phone would always be demanding for attention. While you can always turn on silent mode before sleeping, MIUI 7 is making the DND mode automated with the help of a Mi Band. The Mi Band as an activity tracker knows when you’re asleep and will automatically turns on DND mode. Once you’re awake, it is also smart enough to disable DND mode so that you start receiving alerts right away.

XXL Text

Especially for the elderly, viewing normal text size can be a strain. While you can easily bump up the text size, the execution isn’t always perfect with broken lines and ugly alignment. With MIUI 7, it now offers an even larger XXL size and it is done beautifully in any screen without breaking its original layout design.

MIUI Data Saver

Data is core in every smart phone experience. Not everyone has a huge data plan and high-speed coverage could be limited especially in developing countries. To ensure an optimal internet experience, Xiaomi has incorporated Opera Max Data Saver which helps to compress data not only in browser but also in other internet connected apps. This helps to speed up loading and will also help to cut down consumption of your precious internet quotas.

Baby Album

For those with kids, your smart phone is the best camera of capturing moments in any situation. If need to show photos of your baby, it can be a daunting task if your album is filled with random pictures. To make things easier, they now have a Baby Album which automatically creates a collection for your baby with the help of facial recognition.

Daily Lock Screen

Similar to Huawei’s Magazine cover feature, you can have a different lock screen wallpaper every single day. There’s a selection of high quality images and this will be made available first in India before it is released for international markets.

Child Mode

Sometimes your kids might want to “steal” your phone for a short game or two. To keep your data private and phone settings intact from curious fingers, the Child Mode lets you pick which apps and features that are accessible to them.

Faster Response

Performance is always a concern of users and MIUI 7 has been tweaked to provide a faster experience. App start up times have been optimised by loading both data and animations in parallel and Xiaomi claims a 30% improvement in app response.

Improved Battery Life

According to Xiaomi, as much as 48% of battery life are consumed by background processes such as GPS, mobile data and WiFi. To squeeze more life from each charge, they have optimised its background usage as well as regulating app sync times to minimise consumption. As a result, this would give 10% better battery life which is equivalent of up to 3 hours extra each day.

MIUI 7 Beta Download

If you can’t wait to give it a go, MIUI 7 will be available as a beta release beginning 24th August on the official MIUI website. The Beta release will support Redmi 1S, Redmi 2, Mi 3, Mi 4, Mi 4i, Redmi Note 3G and Redmi Note 4G. To watch the full presentation, you can hit play in the embedded video below.