Android “L” UI compared against MIUI 6 on Xiaomi Mi 4

One of the most awaited announcements from Google is its new version of OS — now known only by the name Android L. We’ve reported before that it promises a significant boost in performance and even in battery life, but one of the most noticeable change is its layout. Here is a comparison from a thread at MIUI’s site of the awaited Android L against the new MIUI 6 that was just announced last week.

Left: MIUI 6 | Right: Android “L”

MIUI’s Lock Screen allows you to swipe up or left to launch Camera app. Android L adds sideways swipe that gives access to your dial pad.

MIUI 6 shows the number of notifications inside a circle. Android L, on the other hand, lets you reply directly to notifications with its “Smart Lock Screen”.

Tiled and flat are MIUI’s icons while Android L’s are cut-out and most are already familiar.

MIUI offers an entire frosted background to make the icons pop out more. Stock Android L limits the icons inside a window.

The notification bar of the MIUI 6 can accessed by swiping down anywhere on the screen. Users may swipe left and right to go to notification toggle.

With Android L swipe down once for the notification bar, twice for the notification toggle.

Still on a frosted background, MIUI’s Recent Apps can be viewed as apps or cards. Swipes up to close.

This is Android L’s Recent Apps function that swipes sideways to close card-like apps.

Icons for MIUI are uniquely animated – tiles have shadows when you move them, they shake like in iOS, and have “firework” effects when you delete them.

Animation for Android L are seen while setting options and on Recent Apps.

From what we can see, MIUI 6′s interface is going after an iOS look. Partner that with the Mi 4′s display and we’re looking at colorful tiles on a Full HD resolution. Android L, however, still keeps its classic appeal but definitely with some tweaks. Both look very easy to navigate around with and are aesthetically pleasing in their own ways.

But if you were to choose, which user interface would better suit you?