Poco Launcher Beta for Xiaomi devices leaked before official launch on 29 August

Xiaomi’s sub-brand Poco recently launched what easily is the cheapest smartphone you can buy with Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 845 chip inside. But apart from the processor, what also sets the Poco F1 apart from any other Xiaomi smartphone is the Poco Launcher. [caption id=“attachment_5028581” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] POCO launcher on the POCO F1. Image: Xiaomi India[/caption] The phone runs on Android Oreo 8.1 with MIUI on top alright but the skin has been tweaked a little bit for Poco, adding a bunch of new additions that any Xiaomi user would call a welcome addition. During the launch event in New Delhi, the company mentioned that the Beta version of the Poco launcher will be available on Play Store starting 29 August. But within a day of the launch, a report by FoneArena seems to suggest that the launcher has already been leaked and also works just fine on any Xiaomi device. You can go ahead and download the leaked APK file of the launcher from here . There is a prerequisite here though. You will need to head over to app settings and uninstall all updates to the pre-installed MIUI launcher and then install the APK. The Poco launcher introduces a number of features to conventional MIUI including an app launcher, a search bar at the bottom of the app scroller, app grouping based on categories or colours (though this isn’t included in the leaked beta launcher yet) and even supports long-press actions. The launcher also allows you to hide apps. You can read our first impressions of the Poco F1 here .