Xiaomi has announced the Mi A1 smartphone, which is the company’s new flagship offering. The Mi A1 comes with the tagline of “created by Xiaomi, powered by Google”. Yes, you read that right. The Xiaomi Mi A1 is an Android One offering, and for the first time, the software is the most distinctive feature of a Xiaomi smartphone. However, this doesn’t mean that the hardware of Mi A1 falls on the low-end like other devices under the Android One program. In fact, the Xiaomi Mi A1 has some really powerful internals that even match the most premium of devices out there.

Thanks to the partnership with Google, software experience on the Mi A1 is pure stock Android. But there are certain things where stock Android fells short, and thus Xiaomi has included some of their apps to the device to give a better user experience. Below are the four apps that comes pre-installed on Mi A1:

  • Mi Camera app
  • Mi Remote app
  • Mi Store app
  • Feedback app

According to Xiaomi, the Mi A1 comes with a camera setup which is identical to that of their flagship phone Mi 6. And in order to provide a complete experience, they have replaced the stock Google camera app with their own offering. The Mi A1 comes with a dual-camera setup which allows the users to capture images with “bokeh” effect, to make the capture look like it is coming out of a DSLR.

Since the Mi A1 features an IR Blaster, Xiaomi has also pre-installed their Mi Remote app on the device. It makes sense as the company offers a wide variety of other Mi home products and pretty much all of them can be controlled with the app on your Mi A1. Apart from just being able to control Xiaomi products, the app will also allow users to control products like TV, Air conditioners, etc. from hundreds of other manufacturers.

Finally, the addition of the Mi Store app, as well as the Feedback app, are self-explanatory. With the addition of the Mi Store app, the company is simply trying to push their own brand, allowing users to browse the various available products through their app. The Feedback allows users to give out their feedback about their user experience, etc; which will allow the company to craft better experiences going forward.

While a few users might find the addition of these apps annoying, it looks like Xiaomi is trying to push their own services to further enhance the experience.

Source: Mi Blog