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.

mi_a1_black_front_back
Mi A1

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.

xiaomi_android_one_camera2_google_issue_tracker
Click/Tap to zoom

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.

mi-a2-march2
Mi A2 initial March update which was pulled back

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.

mi_a2_may_2019_ota_changelog
Image source: reddit

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.

mi_a2_may_2019_update_discussion
Source

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.

mi_a2_bootloop_user_confused_forum
Confused Mi A2 user regarding applying update (Source: Mi Community)

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.

mi_a2_fastboot_rom_download_april_2019

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.

Update (May 21)

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
mi_a2_lite
Mi A2 Lite
  • 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.

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.

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Kingshuk De
896 Posts

I came from a mixed background of Statistics and Computer Science. My research domains included embedded computer systems, mobile computing and delay tolerant networks in post-disaster scenarios. Apart from tinkering with gadgets or building hackintosh, I like to hop on various subreddits and forums like MyDigitalLife and XDA.

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