Pocophone/Poco F1 MIUI (stock) apps may get replaced with Google apps in the future, as per forum mod

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As many may already be aware, Xiaomi has done away with some of its stock apps in favor of Google’s on most of its newer offerings. This is only valid in global regions though, as Chinese users continue to avail all stock apps out-of-the-box.

Xiaomi says that they had to do this to abide by privacy laws and restrictions in certain regions, especially the regulations in the European Union.

This move was not welcomed by most due to a variety of reasons. Firstly, there’s the dilemma of call recording. The Google Phone does not support it on most devices as of now. And secondly, Google apps look very out of place amongst other Xiaomi apps.

Hence, many users have been rooting for the return of stock apps. There was even a petition held up for the same in the Mi forums, which we have covered here.

However, devices that were already shipped with stock MIUI apps were exempted from this change, much to most users’ relief. Still, Xiaomi has been encouraging users to give up Mi Messages and instead move over to Google Messages for several months now.

This is being done through a persistent prompt that keeps showing up even after hitting “Not now”.

Now, reports of this issue have been scarce globally, with the exception of Europe, where the prompt has been continually bothering users.

All this has pointed towards an interesting development. A Poco F1 user had inquired regarding the prompt that keeps asking to install Google apps (Messages) on the device, to which a forum mod had replied the following:

As clear from above, the moderator has implied that the Poco F1 may get its stock communication apps replaced in favor of their Google counterparts like Google Messages and Phone.

Of course, this is only speculation at this point, but the prompts to shift to Google Messages may be a prelude to the replacement of Mi Messages.

And if stock apps are indeed to be replaced on the Poco F1, then it is very likely that other devices will suffer the same fate. We can only hope for now that this doesn’t actually happen.

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