Like a bolt from the blue, we discover that the POCO Launcher is no longer available on the Play Store. After being released for the first time aboard the historic Pocophone F1, it was then made available to everyone through the Google app store.
A decision that was well received by users, as it demonstrated the opening of Xiaomi to alternative app stores to its own. Over the years, in fact, more and more Xiaomi apps have also become available on the Play Store: File Manager, Calculator, Calendar, App Vault, Weather and others.
That’s why Xiaomi has removed the POCO Launcher from the Google Play Store
Among the Xiaomi apps on the Google Play Store, there is also POCO Launcher, but many of you may no longer be able to find it. And no, this is not a bug but an official choice of Xiaomi, as can be seen from the message in the latest version of the app:
“ We discontinued support for POCO Launcher (Google Play Edition) on April 1, 2022. The current version of POCO Launcher is supported on devices running Android 11 (Android R) or earlier. It appears that a later version of Android is running on your device. To avoid errors, switch to another launcher. ”
Looks like a Google Play Store version of #POCOLauncher will not be maintained anymore.
From the latest APK. pic.twitter.com/syAtnNjOgN— Kacper Skrzypek 🇵🇱 (@kacskrz) July 11, 2022
At this point, the situation becomes unclear. Currently, POCO Launcher is still available on the Google Play Store but only for smartphones with Android 11 or earlier. The reason for this choice is not clear, given that several Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO models have received the update to Android 12. This means, for example, that a Samsung smartphone with Android 11 can download it from the Play Store, while a Xiaomi with Android 12 cannot.
Trying to hypothesize the reason for this decision, it seems that Xiaomi’s intention is to limit the spread of the app, making POCO Launcher available only on POCO smartphones. According to the insider Kacper Skrzypek, the reason would be attributable to the development of the launcher, which for some years has taken a different turn than previously assumed. When it was launched, POCO Launcher was proposed as an alternative to MIUI, with a less “oriental” aesthetic and a greater number of customizations.
However, over time the hypothesis of a sort of “merger” with the MIUI that it had proposed to replace has become increasingly popular. With some products, there has been talking of a ” custom launcher based on MIUI ” instead of ” POCO Launcher “. There had even been rumors of a real POCO UI instead of MIUI, but the project never went through; the POCO sub-brand itself recently talked about the conflictual relationship with MIUI.
At this point, if you have a smartphone with Android 12, the only way to install POCO Launcher is to download the APK file: you can do it from our article, but we do not guarantee that it will work on all smartphones.
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