[June update] Poco F1 (Pocophone F1) updates to slow down, is Poco F2 (Pocophone F2) coming?

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

Want to get day-one OTA updates, irrespective of the generation of your phone? In the world of Android, the choice is very limited. Google and a few OEMs (notable mention: Essential) are the one who usually rollout software updates to every phone in their portfolio simultaneously.

On the other hand, most of the phone makers prefer to prioritize updates for their current generation flagships. The mid-rangers as well as older flagships are gradually being pushed down towards an intentional delayed update policy.

Take the example of Xiaomi Mi 6: the two generation old flagship from the Chinese OEM was once rumored to be stuck at Oreo for the lifetime. However, the company changed their stance but the update frequency is way slower than 2019’s Mi 9.

The question is, will Xiaomi give the same treatment to the Pocophone F1? Judging from the recent circumstances, the probability is quite high!

Delayed/skipped software updates

Since the release, the Poco F1 got a number of software updates. Apart from regular bug fixes, Xiaomi brought new features like 4K@60FPS video recording, Game Turbo mode and even Widevine L1 certification.

Although there is no shortage in beta updates, the stable channel has been slowly dried up. The OEM skipped February update, promised to deliver two updates in March to compensate, again delayed and finally released the second update in early April.

Alvin Tse, the head of Pocophone Global, hinted that the company might skip the May update entirely due to some last minute critical changes from Qualcomm. As a matter of fact, he is now pointing towards a late June release.

Alvin also posted a thread in the Poco F1 sub-forum of the Mi Community, where he mentioned that the company was planning to slow down the pace of feature updates and trying to concentrate more on fixing existing critical bugs.

Hi all POCO Fans,

Thanks much for your support in the past 10 months!

As POCO F1/POCOPHONE F1 is entering a more stable phase, we’ll slow down pushes of updates and will mostly focus on bug fixes.

If you come across any critical bugs, please do let me know. I’m available on Twitter at @Atytse.

Thanks again for your patience and support!

Best,
Alvin

The beta channel should be unaffected by the new strategy, but putting the phone in bugfix-only stable update branch is nothing but the first step of retirement.

Arrival of the successor

The newly released Redmi K20 series has been confirmed to be rebranded as Mi 9T (Pro) in various European countries. They are also confirmed to be released in India as soon as in next 6 weeks.

Will Xiaomi/Redmi keep the Redmi branding or market them as Pocophone F2 lineup? Only time will tell.

Nevertheless, the original Poco F1 is now a legacy product. Hope it will get Android Q as promised.

Xiaomi finally rolls out the June update for the Pocophone F1 with MIUI 10.3.5.0 OTA. The new build brings May security patch and new lock screen clock.

For details and download link, see here.

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