Milestone upgrade and transformation MIUI8 first launch in-depth experience

IT168 Review Before starting this article, the author first tried to recall the MIUI 7 launch conference in August last year. However, there are not many upgrade points that can leave a deep impression on me. What I briefly remember in my mind are just a few new sets of personalized theme UIs, optimized global Big Mac fonts, dynamic photo stickers for incoming calls and other innocuous functions. point. This also made a large number of rice fans at the time unhappy. After all, each previous cross-version upgrade of MIUI gave people a refreshing feeling and seemed to have the magic power to rejuvenate old mobile phones. The incompetence of MIUI 7 makes people wonder whether MIUI has forgotten its heart that was born for fever?

But less than a year later, Lei Jun brought us the new MIUI 8 system at the Xiaomi Max conference. The continuous applause at the scene, the complaints in Xiaomi forums about not being able to get the qualification for internal testing, and the cries below the official Weibo account all let the author see the expectations of Mi fans. This major version upgrade is also known as the most difficult development, the most innovative feature points, and the shortest release cycle in the history of the MIUI team. Therefore, MIUI 8 is not only the expectation of millions of rice fans, but also a confident answer given by MIUI engineers to users. As a mobile phone editor, the author is fortunate enough to be qualified for internal testing of MIUI 8. All I can do is to experience it and share my thoughts with everyone as soon as possible.

Today's MIUI has 200 million Internet-activated users around the world. As user needs continue to increase, more and more new features have been added. MIUI, which once mainly pursued smoothness and stability, has also begun to focus on functional user experience, providing more convenient life services, making users feel that MIUI is easy to use.

"Before officially starting the MIUI 8 experience, we first summarized all three major upgrade points of MIUI 8

.

1. New interface design , with beautiful colors, small and natural animations, and the addition of Xiaomilanting font.

2. Complete functions, including calculator, scan, photo album and note, mobile phone avatar, long screenshot, etc. Addition of floating ball function.

3. Improvement of security and performance. Support fake base station fraud SMS identification and prevent application chain startup management.

Atlas smart clone + fully optimize MIUI. 8 Comparison with MIUI 7

"Dozens of functional improvements and nearly a thousand detail optimizations

This time MIUI 8

did not redraw the default icon, after all, MIUI At present, icons have been specially customized for more than 20,000 third-party software. Directly changing the style will result in a huge workload, causing other more important functions to be unable to be launched on time, and thus the gain outweighs the loss. However, the fact that the icon style has not been changed does not mean that it has lost its freshness. After all, there are many customized themes in the Xiaomi theme store for users to choose from.

MIUI 8 has redesigned the system-level UI interface that users often use. For example, the notification bar can automatically change colors according to the weather, the settings menu uses a native card style, and the multi-tasking menu is embedded in the music player. Plug-in, redo Xiaomi Notes, recorder, calculator and other applications. In addition, MIUI8 also has a lock screen pictorial function, which can automatically change the lock screen wallpaper according to the user's preferences, giving you a different mood every time you light up the screen.

In addition, in terms of details, MIUI 8 also adds many dynamic effects, such as calendar/recorder/weather and other built-in software. At the same time, MIUI 8 also uses Xiaomilanting font, which optimizes the details of the standard Lanting font, enhances the unity between characters, and the overall reading experience has been significantly improved. Of course, Xiaomi's efforts in performance optimization and power-saving management have not slowed down. This time, it also launched chain startup management and power-saving mode functions.

"Mobile phone clone

"

Mobile phone clone essentially allows one mobile phone to have two systems at the same time, so that the clone system can be used as a separate private space use.

After turning on this function, the cloned system will generate three new functions on the desktop, namely data migration, clone settings and switching clones. In other words, after splitting, you can migrate the applications, photos, files, communication records and other data of the original system without having to repeatedly install applications or copy files to avoid taking up excess storage space. In addition, users can also set different lock screen passwords to choose to enter the original system or the clone system.

It is worth mentioning that no matter whether the mobile phone is under the original system or the clone system, even if it is connected to the computer, it cannot view any data in the other system. In this way, users can safely store private data. In real usage scenarios, if others don’t know that your phone has a clone function, they will not realize that you still have a private space. Users can place Alipay, mobile banking and other related financial software in the clone system, so that even if the phone is stolen, ordinary people will not be able to find your personal data and private information.

" Application clones

In addition to mobile phone clones, application clones are also a highlight feature of MIUI 8. This feature is relatively easy to understand, as it allows you to There are two WeChat, two QQ, two Landlords, and any software that involves user login. Of course, with the mobile phone clone function, you can even use four WeChat accounts. This is a great benefit for mobile game enthusiasts like me, because you can use a mobile phone to realize the process of trading between large and small accounts in the game.

After talking about the application clone. , I believe that many netizens are looking forward to the split-screen function, because this allows them to play games on the same screen or chat on WeChat in one window, while browsing the web in another window. However, the author specifically learned from MIUI staff that this function will not work. Appeared in the first version of MIUI 8, but the split-screen function will be launched later.

"Calculator: Modify at any time, convert results, and perform various daily calculations

In MIUI 8. Among them, ordinary calculators have been upgraded to full-featured calculators, and Xiaomi mobile phones can easily handle the tedious calculation problems in life. The initial calculation interface of the calculator is the same as before, but when you click on the button in the upper left corner of the page, you will find that the calculator integrates practical tools for calculating mortgage loans, personal taxes, provident funds, unit conversions, etc., and is suitable for a variety of calculation scenarios. For example, girls who love overseas shopping will pay attention to Japanese and Korean cosmetics. Faced with unfamiliar currency units, the prices of goods cannot be reflected in time, and they are confused about how much money they have saved. With Xiaomi's calculator, exchange rate conversion is fast, and it supports multiple currencies. The exchange rate is also updated in a timely manner, so overseas shopping will never be confused. For the majority of office workers, it has become clear and practical to calculate salary and personal taxes, bonuses and benefits, and mortgage payments.

In addition to the powerful integration of functions, the MIUI 8 calculator has also been greatly improved in terms of user experience. Every number entered and every operation performed are clearly presented with steps. In order to deal with input errors of individual numbers and operation symbols, the calculator supports modifying the calculation steps at any time, which makes the calculation process full of security. In addition, the calculator also supports Chinese capitalization conversion of numbers, eliminating the embarrassment of forgetting to write when filling out reimbursement forms.

"Scan: scan physical objects, business cards, documents, scan questions

MIUI 8's scan is also a highlight. To a certain extent, it is an expansion of common text searches. It integrates many incredible functions. Scanning is not limited to daily barcodes and QR codes, but also supports scanning for Taobao, translation, title scanning, business card scanning, and document scanning. Technology, if you encounter a question you don't know, you can scan it and you will be given comprehensive steps to solve the problem. It supports question banks for all subjects from the first year of junior high school to the third year of high school. When you face questions that you can't solve, you can get detailed information by scanning it with your mobile phone. Answer, not only that, MIUI will also push learning reports in a targeted manner based on the data of scanned questions, summarize the bottlenecks encountered in solving problems, and help students and friends better master knowledge.

Scan Li Tao is also a very considerate function. Through relevant cooperation with Taobao, you can scan items to enter the corresponding purchase list. Product information and selling prices of various merchants are clear at a glance. When you go shopping, you might as well scan the products you like, which indirectly helps you compare products. In addition, scanning business cards and documents is also quite practical. It supports converting text in pictures into text in corresponding formats, eliminating the tedious steps of entering text.

Photo album: browsing, slimming, editing, sharing, video editing

As the most basic application of MIUI, the photo album directly affects the user experience, so it is also carefully built on MIUI 8. In terms of photo presentation, panoramic pictures, burst pictures, and GIF animations all have personalized corner icons. When selecting pictures, the new album supports sliding selection, and along with the selection, the number of selected photos will be displayed, making it convenient for users to further management. It is worth mentioning that the new photo album adds a slimming function, that is, the phone retains and displays thumbnails of a certain resolution to ensure daily browsing and social sharing, while high-quality original images are saved in the cloud and can be downloaded online when needed. . It has been verified that this mode can save 90% of storage space, which is of great practical significance for friends who are tight on memory.

The new photo album has been optimized in many aspects to facilitate social sharing. Added gesture operation for sliding up pictures to share, making sharing faster. In addition, a new picture editor has also been added, which not only comes with a variety of filters, but also has rich and professional parameter adjustments, covering mosaics, graffiti, etc., so you no longer need to rely on third-party applications to edit pictures. Not only that, MIUI 8 also adds video editing functions, with multiple built-in video templates, which can produce blockbusters even if the editing foundation is weak.

"Enhanced Notes" function

In MIUI 8, the Notes function has also been further enhanced. It mainly optimizes the interface layout and provides a variety of different styles of note templates, and MIUI officials say that the number of templates will continue to increase in the future. In addition, MIUI 8 has further enhanced functionality, added a private note mode, and strengthened the security of private content.

MIUI 8 Notes has a new card-based browsing mode. Click the icon in the upper right corner of the Notes application to switch between the two browsing modes. Compared with the list mode, the card mode will make the photos in the note larger when displaying the thumbnail information of the note, displaying the information more intuitively, and making browsing the note more convenient.

In addition, MIUI 8 Notes also adds a variety of new note templates, which not only brings more fun to creation and recording, but also makes it easy to distinguish different types of note information. As far as my personal experience is concerned, I will choose to use the "dark" or standard template to record my mood, I will choose the red template to record reminders, and I will use the green template to record some information that is not easy to remember. I don’t know if only obsessive-compulsive users do this, but at least for me, the newly added note templates bring me a lot of convenience. Although notes can also be colored in MIUI 7 notes, in the card-style mode of MIUI 8 notes, various notes are better distinguished and more conspicuous.

MIUI 8 also supports private note mode. In the note editing page, click the button in the upper right corner to make it private. The system will ask you to set an unlock gesture or password when setting the note to a private note for the first time. After successfully setting a note as a private note, the note will no longer appear in the note list. If you want to view private notes, you need to press and hold the note search box and slide down, enter the password to enter the private note list.

"MIUI 8 adds new screenshots

MIUI 8 system also strengthens the system screenshot function and supports long screenshots. Unlike the long screenshots provided by other systems such as Smartisan OS, MIUI 8's long screenshot also supports manual and automatic modes. Specifically, during the long screenshot process, users can adjust the speed and position of the long screenshot by sliding their hands, which is more convenient.

In addition, the photo album function of MIUI 8 has also been further optimized, with new graffiti and mosaic functions to facilitate further processing and editing of screenshots.

The reason why the long screenshot function is launched is because this function does have many practical usage scenarios. In addition to capturing web pages demonstrated above, it can also be used to capture chat records on social software (WeChat, QQ, etc.) for sharing chat content. Basically, all pages that can be slid down can use the long screenshot function without having to take several screenshots. To piece together. This function is already relatively common in mainstream Android phones on the market, but the long screenshot function provided by MIUI 8 is easier to use.

"Added for the first time

" Floating ball function

As the originator of the floating ball function, Apple's old iPhone Home button lifespan was widely criticized. The launch of Assistive Touch solves this problem to a certain extent, and this is actually the original design intention of the floating ball function.

For Xiaomi mobile phones that rarely use physical home button designs, the floating ball added to MIUI 8 is to a greater extent to optimize the one-handed operation of large-screen mobile phones. This feature is actually not uncommon, but MIUI 8 has made deeper optimizations for floating balls. Common floating ball functions generally use a click operation method, and MIUI 8's floating ball supports sliding operations. Once you are familiar with it, it will further reduce operating costs and save operating time.

Secondly, MIUI 8’s floating ball supports function customization. You can set the position and function of the button according to your own usage habits and needs. In addition to the default home button, multitasking, screen lock, screenshot, and return, it can also be set to WLAN switch, mobile data traffic switch, Bluetooth switch, mute, direction lock, etc. It is worth mentioning that in addition to system functions, third-party applications such as WeChat and QQ that are frequently used can also be set on the floating ball button.

"In fact, in addition to the function points we mentioned above, MIUI 8 also has other system-level function optimizations.

" 1. Power saving mode.

In mode, the system will control background activities, stop synchronization, and weaken some visual effects. Officials claim that the usage time can be extended by 2 hours compared to normal mode.

" 2. Add chain startup management.

Currently, there is a chain startup phenomenon in many software, that is, one application wakes up another application, and then starts a vicious cycle step by step. MIUI 8's chain startup management can effectively limit background chain wake-up problems of individual applications.

" 3. Fake base station fraud SMS identification.

The MIUI 8 system has added a chip-level fake base station SMS identification function. Through the three aspects of fake base station SMS identification, SMS phishing website risk warning and browser URL detection, it can comprehensively prevent users from being deceived by fake base station SMS messages. Nowadays, fake base station SMS fraud is becoming more and more hidden, especially for the elderly. MIUI 8’s fake base station SMS identification function reduces users’ risk of property loss through various reminders.

"4. Multi-window tasks.

In the process of using WeChat, I believe everyone has encountered such a problem. When viewing articles shared in Moments, if it happens A WeChat message comes. When you go back to view the message and want to go back to the previous article, you need to reload it and you cannot return to the current reading position. MIUI 8's so-called multi-window task solves this problem. , users can choose to enter WeChat’s chat interface or article interface in the multi-tasking menu, which is very considerate

MIUI 8 experience summary

This time MIUI 8 can be said to be a milestone. Upgrade. Whether it is system-level performance, power saving optimization, or optimization of application functions, especially the new calculator, photo album, application/mobile phone clone, scanning homework questions, sticky notes and other functions are all in place. Functional upgrades have been carried out based on usage logic, and the pain points of many users have been captured. Compared with other domestic customized systems, it has unique advantages.

Against the background of severe homogeneity of system interfaces, MIUI 8 continues to deepen the optimization of the underlying system, carries out micro-innovations according to user needs, and adds functional points. This has greatly improved the practicality of the MIUI system, enhanced user stickiness and the competitiveness of Xiaomi mobile phones.

It is worth mentioning that even the Xiaomi 3 mobile phone in my hand can run the MIUI 8 system smoothly, and it is currently only an experience version. I believe that the stable version in the future will be more stable and smooth. On June 17, the development version of MIUI 8 will be available to everyone. Except for Xiaomi 1 and Xiaomi 2A, all other models can be upgraded.