Xiaomi is working on bringing Android Nougat’s Split Screen Mode to its devices that are still running on Android Marshmallow. Xiaomi devices including the Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3S/Prime/Plus, Redmi 4/Prime (Chinese variant) will be among the device to get the feature.
To recall, Split Screen is a major feature of Android Nougat, which allows users to use two applications at once. When it comes to Xiaomi, the company rolled out the Nougat update to its Mi 5, Mi Max, Redmi Note 4 and Redmi 4 devices, and still features like Split Screen and Quick Switch were not available to Xiaomi users. The Split Screen feature came to Xiaomi devices only after the announcement of MIUI 9 back in November.
Even after the MIUI announcement, there are many Xiaomi devices that were launched in 2016 that are still running on Android Marshmallow. Despite coming with decent hardware, users of these devices are not able to enjoy features like Split Screen and Quick Switch.
Now, it seems that Xiaomi is working to enable Split Screen feature for these devices as well. A post from MIUI China Forum admin says,
“Split screen team engineers are currently actively adapted based on Android 6.x models, is expected to go online in early January to 6.x trial version of the model to be tested until the test is completed, it will go online to the development version and follow-up stable version.”
The post was originally published in Chinese by an Admin. It has been translated using Google Translate.
The latest announcement is made in regards to the Redmi 4 Prime running on MIUI China ROM. The Redmi 4 Prime was launched in 2016 with Snapdragon 625, a 5-inch full HD display. It is very similar to the Redmi Note 4 India variant in terms of hardware but it was exclusive to China.
Now, the company has discontinued the Redmi 4 Prime in China. Also, they have announced that it will not get the Android Nougat update. So, the latest news regarding Split Screen feature certainly brings a hope to its users as well as users of the above-mentioned devices. The Alpha testing for the same is said to begin in January.
There is no confirmation if Xiaomi is actually planning to implement Split Screen feature on all devices running Android Marshmallow with MIUI Global ROM as well. The Xiaomi Mi 3, Mi 4, Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3S/Prime/Plus are the devices in India which will benefit from this if Xiaomi implements the feature. The company is yet to roll out the MIUI 9 Global stable update to these phones.