Redmi 5, Mi MIX 2 and Others Get iPhone X-Like Gesture Based Controls With New MIUI 9 Update

Apple's iPhone X, earlier this year, eliminated the need of a home button by bringing gesture based controls into the fray. Xiaomi is also rolling out similar gestures in beta for its range of full screen smartphones, namely the Xiaomi Mi Mix, Xiaomi Mi MIX 2, Xiaomi Redmi 5, and Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus handsets. The move is an interesting consequence of the trend to remove the home button and other hardware capacitive buttons from the front of the smartphone while giving more prominence to a taller display.

A post by MIUI team member PatrickXi on MIUI Forum mentions that MIUI 9 global beta ROM 7.12.28 incorporates full display gestures for the above mentioned smartphones. With the new gestures, users can swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go back to the home screen. Additionally, swiping from the bottom and then holding for one second will open up the Recents tab. And, switching between apps can be done by swiping left or right from the screen to the middle. These gestures resemble the ones currently available on the iPhone X.

The MIUI 9 global beta ROM version will also introduce some fixes for previous bugs such as Top Sites tab getting restored automatically in the native Mi browser and app vault force closing issues. The ROM will also fix the error of not being able to add contact members on dual apps for WhatsApp.

MIUI 9 global stable ROM recently started rolling out to multiple Xiaomi smartphones such as the Mi Max, Redmi Y1, Redmi Y1 Lite, Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4, Mi Max 2, Mi Mix 2, Mi 6, Mi 5, and Mi 5s Plus.

In November this year, images of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi MIX 2s were leaked online. The images reveal that the phone might feature a "notch" just like the iPhone X.