Poco launcher has been spotted on the internet a week before it was scheduled to land on the Google Play Store. Nazeer_67, a member of the Global MIUI Beta Team released the APK (Android package) installation file of the Poco launcher in a dedicated thread on MIUI forums. This post was initially spotted by FoneArena. He went on to share details about the new launcher that will come pre-installed on all the Poco F1 devices. According to the announcement, the Poco F1 will run Android 8.1 Oreo-based MIUI for Poco skin which will be different from the traditional MIUI skin. Also Read - Poco F3, Poco F3 Pro launch details teased, may launch in March 2021
Also Read - Poco F3 could come to India this year, will be a Redmi K40 under the skinAccording to the post on the forum, Poco launcher comes with better app searches while adding that Poco has considered all the factors including the thumb area while moving the search bar to the bottom of the screen so that its not a task to simply invoke the search while trying to find that one app that you know is installed on your smartphone but you can t find it. During the event, Poco announced that it will launch the beta version of the launcher on Google Play Store on August 29, 2018, for MIUI-powered devices. Also Read - Top five smartphones with high refresh rate display under Rs 20,000
Watch: Poco F1 Armoured Edition First Look
If you own an MIUI-powered Xiaomi smartphone then you can install this new launcher on your device to check out the new features that the launcher will come with. The forum post does come with screenshots that showcase the home screen, App Drawer, and search interface.
Image credit: MIUI Forums
The forum thread also noted that if you want to go head to test this Poco launcher, you need to take notice that Poco launcher will replace the default launcher that your Xiaomi device comes with. If you want to get back to the original launcher then you need to navigate to Installed Apps in the Settings app. Once here then you need to tap on the Choose the System Launcher and then uninstall all its updates to get back to the default launcher.
The company also stated that it may bring the launcher to other operating systems if there is sufficient interest. According to the APK, the size of the Poco launcher is 3.85MB. According to the file name, it is likely that this is the 0.1.5 version of the Poco launcher Beta.