[Update: More Details] Xiaomi will get rid of some obnoxious ads in MIUI and add six new features

Update 1 (6/10/19 @ 01:37 AM ET): Xiaomi has provided more details about its ongoing efforts to reduce the number of advertisements in MIUI. We’ve translated the announcement below.

Xiaomi’s MIUI is known for showing ads to its users, a move that the company justifies by saying that it is necessary to support the development cost of its own apps. We have a separate article underway where we highlight some of the issues with the ads, and before we could publish it, Xiaomi’s CEO Mr. Lei Jun has co-incidentally announced that Xiaomi will work towards removing vulgar ads and ads that affect the user experience from MIUI.

This statement comes through Xiaomi’s Product Director Mr. Wang Teng Thomas’s Weibo account. It does not mean that all ads are going away, as the statement refers only to a limited subset of ads that are shown across MIUI.

The company also held a feedback session, and after reviewing the feedback, the company has selected a total of six features that they plan to implement in the future. These six features are:

Support for WeChat / QQ call recording.

Local recycle bin for SMS, Photos, Documents, and other files that gets deleted automatically after 3 days.

Magnifying glass triggered by shortcut key to help users zoom into a picture or text.

New Notification box with custom filters and notifications that are not read for 12-hours are added to the notification box storage. It will not be cleared with on-click cleaning. Users can browse and find them and clear later.

Ultimate Power Saving mode to let users only use SMS and Phone.

Curriculum viewing and alerting in a calendar for schedule of different events in a day.

Consumers have been asked to vote on the three features that they wish to see prioritized for development and rollout. Do note that these statements have been made in the context of the Chinese ROM of MIUI, and all of these may not come over to the Global ROM or to other regions. It is also not clear if these features will be developed for MIUI 10 or for MIUI 11 — we’re guessing it to be the latter.

Development of MIUI 11 began in January 2019. MIUI promises to bring a “new and unique OS”, with a new set of unified system icons that have been redesigned from the ground up, “ultimate power saving mode” and more. There is currently no timeline on the rollout of MIUI 11 betas, so stay tuned for more information in the future.

Source 1: Weibo Source 2: Weibo Story Via: FoneArena

Update 1: More Details

On Weibo, a MIUI Experience Product Director made the following announcement:

The company has already reduced the number of places in MIUI where advertisements are served and will continue to make reductions in the next 2 months.

The company will make sure that no “vulgar” advertisements will be shown to users, especially in the notifications.

The MIUI browser app will show fewer advertisements within 2-3 months.

All advertisements will be clearly disclosed to the user, and users will have the express ability to suspend or close ads.

Xiaomi will make it easier to find advertisement controls in MIUI system apps and settings.

In about 3 months, the company promises to make MIUI lighter for users. However, keep in mind that this commitment is for Chinese software. Xiaomi slightly tweaks its software for India and the rest of the world, so other areas may not see all of these changes or at least not for another couple of months.