[Stable OTA re-released] Xiaomi Mi 6 Android Pie 9.0 update arrives for select users globally

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

Original story from May

Xiaomi started their smartphone business with the Mi series of devices. The naming scheme was less convoluted then – a single numeric digit denoted the generation of the phones. In some cases, a suffix like ‘s’ added to discriminate between the base model and the enhanced variant.

Later on, Xiaomi spawned the ‘Redmi’ series as a lineup of budget oriented phones. Both Mi and Redmi phones run same MIUI – the in-house skin of Android developed by Xiaomi. The hardware configs and premium features are the differentiating factors between the two brands.

The Chinese OEM branched out the Mi brand into a number of subcategories – the MIX series for the aesthetics, the Max series for the phablet lovers and so on. However, the primary segment, i.e. the models with numerical naming scheme, remained unchanged and considered as flagships.

Back in 2017, Xiaomi launched Mi 6 as their primary flagship phone of the year. As a successor to Mi 5, Mi 5s and Mi 5s Plus, the sixth generation Mi phone brought a number of unique features besides typical flagship grade hardware configurations.

Designer Mi Liu, who crafted the design of 2019’s Mi 9, showed his magical imagination with Mi 6. An amalgamation of curved glass or curved zirconia ceramics with stainless steel mid frame, Mi 6 also featured an under-the-glass fingerprint scanner.

Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, the dual rear camera sporting Mi 6 (codename: sagit) was initially launched with MIUI 8 based on Android 7.1 Nougat. As a flagship, Xiaomi delivered pretty quick updates of MIUI 9 and 10.

The underlying Android version was also bumped from Nougat to Oreo (8.0). Interestingly, the phone never gets the incremental Android 8.1 update, although Xiaomi continues to provide feature updates via MIUI.

In February 2019, an engineer from Xiaomi’s BSP (board support package) team posted the following in his personal Weibo profile:

The rough translation depicted that Xiaomi might skip the Android 9 Pie update altogether, as most of the Pie specific features were already back-ported to the phone via MIUI 10 OTA update. Dedicating resources for bringing up Pie would be of little/no value.

However, he suggested that the company could reconsider the decision, depending on the user feedback.

The post quickly erupted controversies among the Xiaomi communities across the world. Historically the Mi flagships got at least two major Android version updates. Deviating from the pattern should leave a negative remark on the Chinese OEM.

Fortunately, the same engineers shared another post after the release of Mi 9.

The rough translation of the points made by him is as follows:

1. Requires fast charging on the meter 6, this hardware limitation, really can’t make it
2. Ask the meter 6 to support the HAL3 camera at the same time, this The workload is too big, there is really no energy to engage in
3. At present, I need to upgrade the GPU driver on the m6 to understand and do it!
4. Requires the PT partition on the meter 6 to re-partition, it is really uncertain
5. Ask the meter 6 plus super night scene this currently really no energy to engage

The much requested Camera2/HAL3 support won’t be coming, neither Quick Charge 4.0 support – as mentioned by the engineer.

6. Ask the meter 6 on the Game Turbo understand, do!
7. Requires the color screen on the meter 6 to display the meter 6 is the LCD, this can not do
8. Requires the full screen gesture on the meter 6 to be despised by the product manager, support the physical button and the full screen is too different, no matter what, if everyone really wants Yes, you can do a hidden function for everyone to try, development version, pure trial, into the stable version of the requirements are too strict, really can not make a product manager
9. No matter, is to upgrade Android P: I heard everyone’s voice, very understanding and support I don’t even say it, this is handed over to me, I will pull through the various departments and start doing it!
10. Other non-meter 6 questions feedback: We will also do a summary of the classification and get feedback from everyone. Thank you very much.

A number of software based features, such as Game Turbo or full screen gestures should come in future updates. Nevertheless, he ensured that the Pie update would be coming.

Facing community backslash, and then reconsidering software update seemed overly dramatic – in fact an engineer might not even have such authority to take these decisions.

Anyway, thanks to developer yshalsager and his spectacular Xiaomi Firmware Updater project, we have our hands on the first Pie based MIUI build for Mi 6!

FYI, this is the first closed beta of Android 9 Pie for Mi 6, thus occasional bugs and stability issues are expected. Both Chinese and global branch have got the update in form of MIUI 9.4.22 build.

Without further ado, here they are:

• Device: Mi 6
• Codename: sagit
• Version: 9.4.22
• Android: 9.0
• Channel: Global Beta (Closed)
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 28059b3cb916e0057c1865b96c9c9866
• Channel: China Beta (Closed)
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 733d66f6b592ce4a0792e64ac1041afe

As a standard practice for closed beta builds, you may need to force flash it using a custom recovery like TWRP to bypass the beta verification checks.

Moreover, the updated bootloader and firmware may break TWRP and data decryption, so it would be better to back up your data beforehand.

Let us know your experience with the first Pie update for Mi 6.

Xiaomi rolled out the first public beta build of Pie update for the Mi 6 as a part of this week’s MIUI 9.5.16 beta release.

Download links are as follows:

• Device: Mi 6
• Codename: sagit
• Channel: Global Beta
• Version: V9.5.16
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5:
  • Type: Fastboot
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 47cda1ff0f789e6e05c4fc079ede25de

• Channel: China Beta
• Version: V9.5.16
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5:
  • Type: Fastboot
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: fd42af160cd6f0820168603861501789

We are now seeing reports that the Mi 6 Android Pie stable update has started rolling out. Apparently, the update is currently rolling out only in China.

Great news for Xiaomi Mi 6 owners! Mi 6 pushed MIUI 10.4.2.PCACNXM stable version update, this update is based on Android P, which means that Mi 6 has been officially upgraded to Android 9.0 system. It’s the first MIUI 10.4 Stable ROM! Waiting for Global

Xiaomi is finally rolling out the stable Android Pie update for global Mi 6 units running international MIUI firmware. The download link of the full package is as follows:

• Device: Mi 6
• Codename: sagit
• Channel: Global Stable
• Version: V10.4.1.0.PCAMIXM
• Android: 9.0
  • Type: Recovery
    • Download: Link
    • MD5: 38edd1584cdb834ca0c041419cdac89a

Mi 6 receives a rebooted Android Pie OTA as the previous build might be pulled back earlier. Details here.

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