[Updated] New MIUI version without banned apps coming soon for Indian users, Xiaomi India MD confirms

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

Original story (published on August 7, 2020) follows:

Xiaomi has been the most affected smartphone company from the decision taken by the Government of India to ban several Chinese apps. When the ban came into effect, we reported that several apps that were banned were still pre-installed on the Poco M2 Pro.

Although, Poco shared an open letter in response to the privacy concerns on the Poco M2 Pro. Further, the Mi Community app which is installed on all MIUI devices was also included in the list of banned apps.

And to adhere to the law, Xiaomi made an announcement stating that it has disabled the Mi Community app and website in India. But users were quick to point out that the banned Clean Master app was also pre-installed on all Xiaomi phones, to which the company issued a response.

On the same track, Poco also issued a notice claiming that a new firmware update will be released for its devices that will completely remove all the banned apps. And now, Manu Kumar Jain — MD at Xiaomi India — shared a letter on Twitter to clarify the current situation.

Click/tap to enlarge the image:

According to the information provided in the letter, no banned applications are now accessible on Xiaomi phones in the country. Further, the letter states that Xiaomi is developing a new version of MIUI that will not include any of the banned/blocked applications.

It also mentions that the banned Clean Master application is no longer being used as part of the MIUI Cleaner application. The letter also goes on to clarify that since 2018, all Indian user data is stored within the country itself and has not been shared with any entity outside India.

This information should help put concerned users’ minds at ease. In fact, any new phone that the company launches from this point onward will come with the latest software without any of the banned applications.

Xiaomi users can expect to see the new MIUI version without the banned apps to be released soon via an OTA update. But the company did not divulge a specific date or month for when users can expect to see the update.

As usual, we will continue to track the situation and will post an update once there is a new development. In the meantime, you can check out our MIUI 12 update tracker to know when it arrives on your device.

Today, via a Livestream, Xiaomi officially announced its latest skin over Android called MIUI 12 in India. The company shared a few details and highlights of the new skin and also shared the rollout plan for some of its smartphones that will get the update starting this month. Check out more details along with the roadmap here.

Xiaomi has released a notice that states that a new MIUI update will be released for a host of different Mi, Redmi, and Poco devices that will enable users to manually uninstall the Mi Browser Pro app from their devices. See the full story here.

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