MIUI ROM

So much have happened in the time that I left this place to gather dust. I am now the owner of a Google Nexus One phone.

Officially the first Google Branded phone built by HTC. Confusing? Simple, Google wants to have the control over the updates of the phone software but they don’t produce phone so hence HTC comes in. You can also check the new Google Nexus S by Samsung. Shall talk about it next time.

Today I would like to talk about a custom interface called the MIUI for several devices such as HTC Desire, Google Nexus One, HTC HD2 (yes it’s available for this Windows phone!) and so on.

First thing first

To obtain the custom interface, you first have to go through a process called rooting. Similar but unlike the iPhone, this process basically means you are hereby declaring you might void your warranty to gain more control over your phone. Difference is that Google did not outright say that this is WRONG but to say this is their right. HTC, Motorola, LG that make the phone would obviously say this would make your phone explode so they do not encourage it. Rooting requires some technical knowledge and some courage to do so please refer to your friendly neighborhood Android geek for all the details or visit XDA, the heaven of info on modifying your smartphones.

About MIUI

Here’s how it looks like, this is 3 of my home screens that I placed. As you can see there is no longer the app drawer like typical Android would have. Instead, they would all appear on the homescreen. iPhone users would be like hey that’s so familiar but for Android users it would be a pain to see all their apps on the screen. I would say this is a small price to pay since there are much more functionality in MIUI. As for the gazillions of icons? You can either use a home replacement like Launcher Pro or use a folder. Fear not, our Android folders is bottomless so to speak :P

When using MIUI you will realize several similarity between iOS and this Chinese-developed interface such as icons, menu style. As you can see from below, the interface is simple and clean like the iPhone and when you swipe a message to the right, the delete option would appear. This adds value to default sms app that Android has. Within the thread of messages, you are also able to swipe to delete. Not sure about the iPhone on this one. The most right screenshot is the menu of MIUI which resembles the iPhone itself. This actually complicate things as there are similar options that are repeated in the “common” tab and “personal” tab.

Here’s the lockscreen of MIUI. Notice the three symbols? MIUI enhances the functionality of the locksreen more than most of the software in the market. When you unlock the screen by dragging down the phone icon, you access to the phone dialer right away and similarly with the messaging icon. When you double tap the lock icon, you bring up the music player controls and play your favorite tunes right away.

MIUI as shown below has a very beautiful music player out of the box so you don’t have to look for alternatives.

Upholding the essence of Android being very customizable, have their very own theme manager and a wide range of themes to choose from. The ROM comes with a theme manager app and a theme downloader app. In the app, you are able to preview the theme before applying it. Applying a theme is as easy as install and rebooting your phone. If you look at the top left screenshot you will be able to see the main menu of the theme manager. You are able to even change the animation when your phone starts and what sound it makes when it starts. LOL. Before this, Android is also able to make this happen but it has to go through the scary recovery mode that new learners are afraid of to be applied. As for the theme downloader, it’s also as simple as select and download :)

What makes me choose MIUI?

So here’s the biggie(s) that attracted me to MIUI. First of all is the attractive and clean interface. No doubt that it pirates from Apple’s interface but I would this takes it to a whole new level. Here’s a few reason. I am a person who wants to get access to my system settings quickly and effectively. The first screenshot is the notification bar dragged down. They are not just 4 shortcuts but scrollable from left to right… as in a lot of shortcuts. Wait, it’s not just shortcuts, when you long press an icon for example the wifi icon, it jumps into it’s settings directly. When I go to an area that I never been to, I just turn my wifi down, long press the icon and check if there’s any free wifi straight away :P

Secondly, MIUI has many built in functions that Android users previously need to download an app to have. App manager is one of them. In MIUI, you simple hold the home button and you are able to kill the apps immediately. File manager is another one but hey they included a nice basic one as well. It indicates your file size usage at the bottom according to type.

So what say you? My girlfriend calls this iDroid. :)

So what’s so special about Android? Of notifications and customization.

Before you jump into this post, you might want to check out what Android is all about. In short, it is a mobile operating system (like Windows or OS X on Mac) that was bought over by Google. Google wanted to make this OS open source so that any manufacturer or individuals can use this platform for free. Make funky, crazy and cool stuff with it.

The Ancestor of Android phones: G1

So then Google released it’s first Android phone, manufactured by HTC.

After that, more and more phones were released and companies like Samsung, Motorola or LG supported Android. We’ll talk about the history more if more readers, like you want me to :)

All these manufacturers then put on their own version of Android “skin” or “theme” that they believe would add value to Android. Just Google up the screenshots of HTC Desire and Motorola Milestone to see what am I talking about.

Let’s talk about main features that I think differentiate from the mass adopted Apple iPhone since this would be a hot debate. LOL. Warning: These are just my opinions so don’t hate me if you bought an Android phone and don’t quite like it. After all, it all depends on personal taste and preferences. In general, the theme for Android would be customization.

Notification system

That’s the thing that tells you that you have an sms, email or anything new that you might wanna know.

Many tech blogs and reviewers think that Android notification style is much more effective and non-intrusive. Here’s why

See the black bar at the top? Time, battery, signal etc etc are shown there. When you have something like a new sms, it shows there too. What is special about that bar is that you can drag it down. Showing you more stuff if you want. The most right picture shows you what it looks like.

So when you have an sms from your girlfriend/boyfriend, just tap it and it will bring you to the message. Also it will show you the first line or two of the message.

What about iPhone? Well let’s just say that the notification system is very direct. When you have something new, this is what it looks like.

The popup will appear like “in your face” manner. I guess you won’t miss it in this fashion. But for me, I prefer a more subtle and customizable notification system. For Apple devices, I would be interrupted by their notifications while I am playing a game or surfing on Safari. Some of you might like to attend to the SMS right away but I guess a beep to notify me would be enough before I get to it. Of course you can turn off notifications for some apps on iPhone and with Android you can get the iPhone style of notification as well.

Again, I would like to stress that in the end it’s your preference that counts :)

Customization

Let’s talk about the home screen of Android for a second

We have multiple home screens that you can put stuff on Android. This is screen 1 of my phone. The top has something we call widgets. It’s like a shortcut to apps but they provide functions. The one I have here quickly allows me to turn on/off my wifi, bluetooth, gps and mobile internet connection. So with 1 touch I can turn on my wifi and surf away. Unfortunately, iPhone users have to jailbreak their phones to obtain this feature.

Adding widgets is as simple as tap and hold at an empty space of the homescreen and walah, pop up menu with plenty of widgets to choose from. So I have added a Twitter widget that shows Twitter update from my homescreen without going into the app and a quick Google search bar. We are now one tap away from Google voice search.

So back to my point of customization of Android, you can see that you can do a lot of things with your home screen without even going into the app. With this, you can access things much faster. Also, you can replace almost any feature that you don’t like about Android. SMS app, keyboard, clock, calendar, email app and more. You can make them your default app so everytime you have an SMS, Android will open it up using your choosen app. Smart eh?

Keyboards are a good example for this feature. Here I have 3 type of keyboards and FREE! From most left: Swype, swiping instead of tapping to type, Google Pinyin for Chinese and HTC modified keyboard. It’s as easy as changing a few options to switch to these keyboards.

SMS app for Android

The most left is what Android gave me but I didn’t like it. So what do I do? I download an app, make it my default app. So now I use this beautifully customized SMS app. With iPhone, I believe you can achieve this by turning off/on notifications for apps you want or don’t want to use.

Well that concludes the first part of Android features, I will talk about more in the next post. See ya next time!