5 Best MIUI 12 Features You Should Know

1. User Interface

Xiaomi has been consistently redesigning its user interface for the past few years in order to make MIUI more minimal and intuitive to use. Last year, MIUI 11 departed from its clunky design language and brought something fresh to the table: a clean and coherent UI. This year, with MIUI 12, Xiaomi builds on its earlier foundation, and it seems, the company has finally struck a fine balance between feature count and minimal design language. Right from the home screen to settings and system apps, everything is in complete sync with each other. I would say, for the first time, MIUI does not feel out of the place. I dug deep around the UI but didn’t find any obsolete interface from AOSP which basically proves that Xiaomi has been persistent in overhauling and maintaining the design language across the board on MIUI 12.



The menus and pages are highlighted with large headers — eerily similar to Windows Mobile OS. The buttons and toggles are again larger, making it easier for users to manage their smartphone. What I like about MIUI 12 is that it does not feel cartoonish in any manner. In fact, MIUI 12 feels quite matured because of its consistency in every design element– small or big. What’s more, the whole UI has a visual approach rather than textual. There are infographics, buttons, menus, cards — and they all flow from a visual design language. So to sum up, MIUI 12 is very well put together and I am certain you are going to love every bit of it.

2. Animations

The animations on MIUI 12 are so good that it deserves a separate section. Yes, it’s clearly inspired by iOS, but I would say, a job well done at successfully copying each UI transitions with finesse. The moment you unlock the phone, the fade-in animation on MIUI 12 gives a satisfyingly smooth experience. Further, you will experience bounce effects all across the UI and Zoom effect while opening apps. You get satisfying animation when you  uncheck a task in the Notes app, uninstall an app, move between apps, and do anything else. Basically, the animations on MIUI 12 takes the user experience a notch higher, and perhaps better than Pixel’s Stock UI. Simply put, MIUI 12 is brewing wth a range of visually-pleasing animations and that completely changes the standing of MIUI among all the Android ROMs out there.



3. Control Center

In a bid to make MIUI more like iOS, Xiaomi has separated the Quick Settings panel and notification shade into two different parts. You can access the Quick Settings panel — unironically named Control Center — from the top-right side and notification shade from the top-left side. Many users will hate it and rightfully so, but there is nothing to worry about. You can still go back to the old layout by simply disabling the Control Center from the Settings page. Problem solved. But talking about the design aspect of MIUI 12’s control center, I think it looks pretty good and again, a good job done at copying iOS.



Other than that, Xiaomi has also implemented its own version of Group Notification. Based on promotional and low-priority content, MIUI 12 will group notifications to the bottom in order to make your notification shade less crowded. However, if you don’t like this implementation, you can still go back to Android’s default style which is much better.

4. Gesture System

With MIUI 12, Xiaomi has finally done away with its native gesture implementation and incorporated Android 10’s gesture navigation system. You can go back from both the sides, but can’t switch apps by holding the back gesture. Further, you can switch between apps by swiping left and right at the bottom of the screen. Having said that, what I love MIUI is that it adds its own refinements. While the gesture system is almost stock, Xiaomi has added a way to open the app-specific menu from the top part of the screen. It basically means that from the top part, you can swipe right to open a hamburger menu and it won’t trigger the back gesture. How awesome is that? One more reason to love MIUI 12.



5. Disable Ads in One-tap

Remember last year when Xiaomi announced that it’s going to bring a one-tap toggle to disable all ads from system apps? Well, it’s finally here on MIUI 12. You no longer need to go through hacks and disable ads from individual apps. Just open the account page located at the top of the Settings page and move to “Privacy Policy”. Here, you will find “System Ads”. Open it and disable the toggle right away. That’s it. In one tap, you can now disable ads from all system apps on MIUI 12. However, if you wish to remove the bloatware from MIUI then you should follow our linked guide.



6. Floating Window

Floating window is one of the major features of MIUI 12 and I really like that Xiaomi has taken Freeform Window from Android 10 and made something usable for general users. You can basically create a mini window of an app (it works on most of the apps) and continue work on other apps seamlessly