Xiaomi is one of the world’s leading smartphone manufacturers, known for offering high-quality devices at affordable prices. However, Xiaomi also faces fierce competition from other brands, such as Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Oppo, who have their own operating systems (OS) that power their devices. Xiaomi’s current OS is MIUI, which is based on Android but has many customizations and features that set it apart from the stock Android experience.
MIUI has received positive feedback for its smooth performance, user-friendly interface, and rich content ecosystem, but it has also faced negative criticism for its bloatware, security issues, and frequent updates that can cause compatibility problems with some apps and services. Moreover, MIUI is not very compatible with other Xiaomi devices outside of its own ecosystem, such as smartwatches, tablets, laptops, TVs, cameras, and cars. This limits the potential of Xiaomi’s products to work seamlessly together and offer a more convenient and integrated user experience.
To overcome these challenges and to create a more unified branding for its ecosystem experience, Xiaomi announced the development of a new OS called HyperOS in October 2023. HyperOS is an operating system designed for the “Human x Car x Home” smart ecosystem, which connects more than 200 products from Xiaomi’s portfolio. HyperOS aims to efficiently maximize a wide variety of device hardware capabilities for optimal single-ended performance, to support flexible distributed collaborative computing to enhance lightweight device performance, to provide superior heterogeneous compatibility with different hardware platforms, and to offer end-to-end security with comprehensive hardware-level protection.
HyperOS is not simply a rebranding or an update of MIUI. It is a completely new OS that is based on Android 14 but has many enhancements and optimizations that make it more suitable for various types of devices. HyperOS also introduces some new features that are not available in MIUI or other Android skins. Some of these features are:
Alive Design Philosophy: This feature allows users to customize their device’s appearance according to their preferences and moods. Users can choose from different themes, colors, fonts, wallpapers, icons, animations, sounds, and effects to create their own unique style. Users can also use artificial intelligence (AI) to generate personalized designs based on their photos or preferences.
Artistic Lock Screen: This feature enables users to turn any photo into a poster or a magazine cover using advanced graphics rendering techniques. Users can select from various templates or upload their own photos to create stunning artworks on their lock screen.
Workstation: This feature provides users with a powerful desktop environment that supports multiple windows in different shapes and sizes. Users can easily switch between window layouts using gestures or keyboard shortcuts. Users can also access various productivity tools such as file managers, browsers, editors, calculators, converters, and more within each window.
MIUI 15: This feature brings some improvements and additions to MIUI 15 builds that have been tested on multiple models of Xiaomi, Redmi, and POCO smartphones and tablets . Some of these improvements include better multitasking and enhanced productivity with Workstation , improved OTA storage and performance for lightweight devices , reduced storage occupancy for OTA upgrades , time required for OTA reduced by 76% , improved security framework with self-developed TEE—underlying security system at hardware level .
HyperOS is currently available only in China as firmware updates for selected Xiaomi devices such as the Xiaomi 14 series smartphones, the Xiaomi Watch S3 smartwatch, the Xiaomi TV S Pro 85" MiniLED, and others. The first batch of compatible devices will receive stable release updates in Q1 2024. The global version of HyperOS will be gradually released starting from Q2 2024. The first device with the global version will be the Redmi K60 Ultra smartphone.
HyperOS is an ambitious project by Xiaomi that aims to create a more unified branding for its ecosystem experience across its entire portfolio of devices. It offers many advantages over MIUI or other Android skins in terms of performance, compatibility, security, and design. However, it also faces some challenges such as adoption rate, user feedback, and market competition. It remains to be seen how HyperOS will evolve over time and how it will impact the smartphone industry in general.