As technically its first and still one of its most successful products, Xiaomi has always treated MIUI with due respect, care, and attention. Both MIUI 12.5 and the later-unveiled MIUI 12.5, Enhanced Edition, are now available for international use. Xiaomi recently invested in a team to focus specifically on gathering and addressing MIUI user feedback called the Pioneer Team. It is slated for release in June. It is well worth keeping an eye on MIUI’s beta channels, especially those that reach a beta stage. MIUI Pure Mode is one such newcomer that piqued our interest.
MIUI Pure Mode:
Android applications that contain malicious code are protected by this feature. The company itself states that roughly 40% of apps installed from the default MIUI installer fail a security audit conducted by the company. While around 10% have been identified as security risks at some point in the past. To combat this, Pure Mode will disable sideloading on APKs by default, as well as background installation of apps without the user’s knowledge.
Xiaomi emphasizes, however, that this is only a setting that any user can disable at will to re-enable sideloading if they wish. A total of 5000 beta testers were distributed test packages starting September 6. At a rate of 1000 approved devices and beta testers per day for a total of 5 days. Beta testing is exclusive for limited numbers.
We don’t know what Xiaomi plans to do with Pure Mode yet. It’s not clear if it will be included in MIUI 13 or if it’ll even be released outside China. But that appears unlikely since most users download their apps from the Google Play Store. At this point, we will just have to watch the situation.
