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"Jin Fan's resignation" is probably the most concerned thing for all Mi fans recently. Some people spread the news and muttered, "The Xiaomi system is saved", while others laughed and mocked, "It will be the same no matter who comes."

What’s even more interesting is that the news of “Jin Fan’s resignation” did not come from Xiaomi officials or other insiders, but because some netizens discovered that Jin Fan’s Weibo had been cleared of all content, making it seem like he had cleared his social media accounts to avoid suspicion after running away.

Image source: Weibo

This news quickly attracted the attention of a large number of digital bloggers and media, including authoritative media such as Phoenix.com, and became the latest and hottest "melon" in the digital circle. Although Wang Hua, the head of Xiaomi's public relations department, came out to refute the rumor,It means that Jin Fan did not resign, but was in "seclusion". In order not to be disturbed by the outside world, he set himself to "visible only for half a year". He will come out and chat with everyone after the seclusion is over.

Image source: Weibo

While refuting the rumor, Wang Hua also said that the rumor was so real that Wang Teng (head of Redmi) and people from Xiaomi's international department came to inquire about the situation, which shows how great the impact was.

Why is the suspected resignation of a Xiaomi employee so hotly discussed? Perhaps it all started in 2019.

Who does Mi Fan hate the most?

In 2019, Hong Feng, the former head of Xiaomi's Internet Department, was transferred to Tianxing Digital Technology as chairman and CEO, responsible for the development of Xiaomi's financial business, and Jin Fan took over the position of head of the Internet Department.Internet Department 1 has always been regarded as the core department of Xiaomi Group, mainly responsible for the development and maintenance of Xiaomi's intelligent systems such as MIUI and Mi Home.

After Jin Fan took over the department, MIUI 12, released the following year, became the system with the lowest praise rate in the history of MIUI. A large number of bugs caused the reputation of MIUI to plummet, and even attracted some Mi fans to collectively denounce Jin Fan in the community, demanding his resignation and letting someone who understands MIUI better manage the development.

Image source: MIUI

I believe that many Mi fans still remember the heated discussions during the MIUI 12 era. It was also from that time that Jin Fan became known to most Mi fans as the general manager of the MIUI system. Although in the subsequent update MIUI 12.5, the team led by Jin Fan finally optimized the system to the level that Mi fans called "usable", there was still not much improvement in battery life, heat control and other issues.

After MIUI 12, there was basically no version that was not widely complained by Mi fans, and even the classic "Xiaomi Bible" was exposed, which attracted widespread attention in the digital circle. It was also after the "Xiaomi Bible" incident that Jin Fan officially became popular, expanding from the Mi fan group to the broader group of smartphone enthusiasts, and became synonymous with "poor system".

For example, if the systems of the blue and green factories are not well done, their fans will make fun of them by saying "Jin Fan jumped over?"

Here I will explain to some readers what the "Xiaomi Bible" is. In short, it is a video in which a Mi fan who has used Xiaomi products for many years complained on Bilibili that the community rules had been changed, which cancelled his MIUI internal testing qualification, and described a large number of MIUI system bugs and problems. Because of the true feelings and golden sentences expressed by the UP host, the video was widely circulated and even called the "Xiaomi Bible" by Mi fans.

This video put Xiaomi under great pressure, forcing the relevant person in charge to respond, saying that they had contacted the author of the video, would record all bugs and fix them, and optimize the community rules.In a later interview, Jin Fan admitted that "Xiaomi Bible" brought great pressure to himself and the team, but it also became their driving force, allowing them to spend more time optimizing MIUI and subsequent systems.

Image source: Station B

However, Mi fans are not very satisfied. From MIUI 12 to the new Pengpai OS, there are many complaints about each version. And most of the time, they focus on basic problems such as system lag and freeze. Over time, Jin Fan, as the general manager, has become the "most hated person" by Mi fans.

At the same time, the rumor of Jin Fan's resignation was able to spread widely in a short period of time. In fact, it also highlights Xiaomi users' dissatisfaction with the current status of Xiaomi's mobile phone system and their concerns about its prospects. This undoubtedly sounded a wake-up call for Xiaomi.

System, the last obstacle for Xiaomi to move towards high-end development?

In the past few years, many Mi fans have blamed Jin Fan for the fact that the MIUI system experience is not as good as before, but strictly speaking, Jin Fan may only take half of the blame. Many people may have known Jin Fan after the spread of "Xiaomi Bible", but in fact, Jin Fan had joined Xiaomi Group as early as 2011 and was one of the earliest core employees, and has been in charge of many important projects.

For example, Xiaomi's cloud service team was created from scratch by Jin Fan.He was then transferred to the MIUI team, leading and fully responsible for the release of MIUI 9 and MIUI 10.If you are an old Mi fan, you probably won’t say that MIUI 9/10 is difficult to use. However, the person in charge at that time was Hong Feng. As the father of MIUI who built the MIUI system, he still controls the overall direction of MIUI.

Therefore, some people think that Jin Fan is not incapable.As the person in charge of MIUI 9/10 and the general manager of the subsequent Internet Department, Jin Fan obviously has outstanding capabilities., but it is also difficult to manage the huge system optimization needs of the Xiaomi ecosystem.

Image source: Xiaomi

As the number of Xiaomi smart terminals online increases, the system development team is also responsible for more and more tasks. Today, Xiaomi has expanded from the initial mobile phone business to multiple fields. Mobile phones, tablets, smart bracelets, smart watches, Mijia, Xiaomi TVs, smart screens, etc. all require manual updates and maintenance, resulting in a shortage of manpower for the MIUI system.

And there is another key problem, that is, MIUI itself is becoming more and more bloated. As the smartphone system with the highest degree of community co-creation, MIUI has been absorbing user suggestions and adding many new features to the MIUI system.

Although there are many features that have received rave reviews, there are also many features that few people know about, such as the sidebar function, which needs to be enabled in "More Settings" - "Free Window" - "Global Sidebar", so many people think that Xiaomi does not have a sidebar function (or has deleted it).

Image source: Lei Technology

The bloated system became a nightmare for the MIUI optimization team at the time. Many freezes and minor problems actually originated from the optimization issues of some small functions.But for users, they have no obligation to understand the reasons behind the problem, and lags are a serious impact on user experience, no matter what the reason is.

In fact, some MIUI community users have always believed that the team led by Jin Fan paid too much attention to user suggestions, resulting in too many opinions being absorbed, causing MIUI to become overly bloated and difficult to optimize. In the case of insufficient manpower, a large number of small functions have to be adjusted one by one. Even if there are three Jin Fans, it may be powerless to save the situation.

Take UI animation as an example. Starting from MIUI 12, animation freeze has become an indelible nightmare for MIUI, and it was not until MIUI 14 that Mi fans were barely satisfied. As for other issues, MIUI 13 no longer kills background processes like MIUI 12, but the freeze problem on flagship models still exists. Even today, we can still see netizens complaining about it on some forums, which is not right when comparing flagship products of the same grade horizontally.

It can be said that from MIUI 12 to MIUI 13, two major version updates, Jin Fan’s main work was to patch up the MIUI system to ensure that there would be no serious problems with this big system for the time being.It also has to take into account the system adaptation of more older models. Judging from the update speed of old models in the past few years, Jin Fan has done his best to ensure the update frequency.

Image source: Fast Technology

Although MIUI 14 has improved a lot overall, it has become the last generation of MIUI. The following year's Surge OS earned a lot of reputation for Xiaomi in the early stage, and made Xiaomi 14 one of the best-selling Xiaomi flagship series. As one of the first users of Xiaomi 14, I have a very good impression of Surge OS, but after using it for more than half a year, I found that the system still has the old problem of MIUI - lagging.

Moreover, with the system update, the battery life has also shrunk to a certain extent. From its release last year to around March and April this year, it was the period with the best reputation for Pengpai OS. Subsequently, more and more problem discussion posts began to appear in digital enthusiast communities such as Coolapk and Xiaomi Community.

At the most critical moment for Xiaomi to impact the high-end market, the hardware and brand influence are in place, and now only the last piece of the puzzle, the "system", remains.At this moment, just like at that moment, the pressure returned to Jin Fan's shoulders again, and it was heavier than ever.

Perhaps this is also the reason why Jin Fan chose to go into seclusion. As a veteran of Xiaomi, his love for Xiaomi and Mi fans is no less than anyone else, and he is also the first person who most eagerly wants to show the replaced Surge OS to everyone.

Surge OS, meeting the challenge of AI

As a new generation operating system that Xiaomi has high hopes for, Pengpai OS is actually more than just a smartphone system.Xiaomi hopes to include a series of smart devices such as car computers, tablets, laptops, smart watches, etc. to form a huge smart ecosystem - the so-called "human-car-home" ecosystem.

Image source: Xiaomi

Pengpai OS has extensively rewritten and reconstructed the underlying Android system, allowing it to be deployed on more types of devices. It will also be the key for Xiaomi to enter the next generation of smart interconnection. As Xiaomi's layout in AIoT, smart AI and even in-vehicle fields gradually lands, the success or failure of Pengpai OS is crucial.

Nowadays, the world's smart operating systems are entering the stage of AI and full-scenario applications. Taking iOS as an example, Apple is trying to integrate AI and intelligent systems so that iOS can better interact with other Apple devices, and try to break down the barriers between different devices to create a more integrated user experience.

As for domestic systems, full-scenario interconnection and AI applications have already been implemented. For example, Huawei's previously released Hongmeng NEXT takes AI and full-scenario as the core to build a new system for the future.

Image source: Huawei

In terms of full scenarios, Hongmeng NEXT supports all smart devices of all sizes. Based on a unique file system and communication protocol, it can achieve seamless flow between different devices, such as powerful Share collaboration functions between devices, such as calling the mobile phone camera/album on the PC.

At the same time, the Harmony Intelligence equipped in Hongmeng NEXT is based on the Pangu big model, Xiaoyi intelligent agent, meta-services, intent framework, etc., allowing the device to support powerful AI functions, allowing the OS, system applications and third-party applications to more thoroughly tap the system-level AI capabilities, develop AI applications with a lower threshold, and provide more innovative services to users.

Through in-depth analysis of user experience and needs, Huawei has taken a solid step towards a "unified" system, which has also doubled the pressure on other domestic systems.With Huawei's return to the mobile phone market, we can actually clearly see the changes in the sales share of mobile phone brands. Faced with the strong return of the former king, no manufacturer does not feel a sense of crisis.

OPPO, vivo, Honor, and many other manufacturers are exploring the prospects of the next-generation operating system and creating a new system with AI as the core. As the most popular domestic Android phone brand in recent years, Xiaomi is also under the greatest pressure. The three mountains of users, market, and ecology are forcing Xiaomi to make every effort to climb new heights.

In fact, it is not difficult to see from the blueprint of Pengpai OS that Jin Fan’s conception of this system is very similar to that of Hongmeng NEXT, both of which hope to become a bridge connecting Xiaomi’s various smart ecosystems. Ultimately, users can easily use new devices without learning, and based on Xiaomi’s strong strength in the IoT ecosystem, a real smart matrix will be built for Xiaomi users.

Image source: Xiaomi

But before that, optimization of the smartphone side is of utmost priority. One thing that no one can deny is that Xiaomi mobile phones are Xiaomi's real core business and the foundation of the entire Xiaomi smart ecosystem. The next-generation Surge OS, which is about to be launched, will become the key to Xiaomi's realization of a new smart interconnected ecosystem.

I hope that Jin Fan, who returns after retreat, can give us a good answer.

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In the hottest month of July, Lei Technology's mid-year review is launched, summarizing the brands, technologies and products worth recording in the first half of 2024 in the technology industry, recording the past and looking forward to the future. Please pay attention.