[Mi A1 and A2 Lite as well] Xiaomi Mi A2 May update rolling out, brings nothing but new security patch

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Xiaomi’s take on the Android One program is somewhat eerie. When Mi A1 was launched back in 2017, they included MIUI camera app as a part of the software. Google Camera did not make it due lack of dual lens support at that time.

The Chinese OEM also bundled a few additional apps, such as the Mi Remote, Mi Community and the Mi Feedback apps. Fortunately users can be disable and/or uninstall them.

However, there are some major software related quirks since the inception. Xiaomi, for whatever reason, did not enable Camera2 API support out of the box in their Android One phones.

Although the camera hardware of Mi A1 or Mi A2 (Lite as well) are perfectly capable, the stock firmware came with legacy camera API support. Frustrated users reached out to Xiaomi and Google (as seen above) multiple times, but the situation remained unchanged.

Mi A2 has also been criticized for lackluster eMMC performance. It is still not clear whether the issue resides inside the software implementation or the hardware components itself are faulty, but penetration of this particular bug is huge.

In my experience this bug affects:
– Freezes in the UI
– More lags the more apps/games installed
– Freezes when dealing with downloads/installs (Play store updates, downloading music library, etc)
– Freezes when cleaning the caché of apps (This bug seems to be fixed in custom roms)

Delayed updates is also running the image of the Chinese OEM. For example, competitor Android One phones from Nokia/HMD Global often receive monthly security patches merely days after Google publishes them.

On the other hand, Xiaomi rolled out last few security patches at the last week of the corresponding month for their Android One phones. Some of them were pulled back due to the presence of extreme level of bugs.

Well, looks like they are now rolling out the May update for the Mi A2. The timeframe of OTA distribution is slightly improved since the April 2019 update, but it is still not up to the mark of the Android One branding.

The size of the incremental OTA update is about 100 MB, which indicates the presence of nothing significant apart from the monthly security patch itself.

In a typical manner, the long-standing eMMC bug is still unresolved after this update. The Chinese OEM hasn’t added native Camera2 API as well.

As usual, we have captured the OTA update for manual sideloading. Users can also extract the payload.bin from the update zip and convert it to fastboot flashable package, but further discussions are beyond the scope of this article.

• Device: Mi A2
• Codename: jasmine
• Channel: Global Stable
• Version: V10.0.9.0.PDIMIXM
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 0bc7970e945e95831af6198d8fcedc2a

According to some Mi A2 users, the reboot after applying the update might be longer time than usual.

After the update it took a lot of time for the phone to boot! Please do not be alarmed.

(Source)

The longer boot time and associated bootloop are common for the Mi A2 units, thus it is advisable to unlock the bootloader beforehand. At least users can then reflash their phones in case of emergency.

Talking about flashing, the official fastboot ROM for Mi A2 is still pointing to the April build (V10.0.8.0.PDIMIXM). After downloading, it can be flashed via Mi Flash.

The details about the May 2019 security bulletin can be found here. Once again, Mi A2 Lite and Mi A1 users need to wait a bit more to get their hands on the same update. PiunikaWeb is tracking them as well, so expect a quick follow up article from us.

Have you got the update prompt on your Mi A2? Comment below.

Just after Mi A2, the Lite variant of it as well as the Mi A1 started to get the May security patch.

The download links are as follows:

• Device: Mi A2 Lite
• Codename: daisy
• Channel: Global Stable
• Version: V10.0.9.0.PDLMIXM
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 03922d21a73a71189e65ba52b757d9c0

• Device: Mi A1
• Codename: tissot
• Channel: Global Stable
• Version: V10.0.9.0.PDHMIXM
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: e7aac993ec130310eb162063c72942fb

Credit goes to yshalsager and the Xiaomi Firmware Updater project for tracking the OTA update URLs.

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