POCO Launcher Beta listed on Google Play Store

Poco F1 went on sale for the first time on August 29 via Flipkart and Mi.com. Unsurprisingly, the smartphone went out of stock in a few seconds. And, the company revealed that the next flash sale will happen on September 5. Besides this, the Xiaomi sub-brand also released the kernel sources for the developers who would like to experience custom ROMs. And, the company also released the POCO Launcher, which is a part of the MIUI for POCO.

Xiaomi sub-brand Poco F1 runs Android 8.1 Oreo topped with the custom UI called MIUI for Poco. This is similar to the MIUI custom ROM seen on Xiaomi smartphones but it has some changes to it. During the launch, it was announced that this modified version of MIUI will have the POCO Launcher. Also, it is touted to receive updates faster than the Xiaomi smartphones.

At the time of announcing the smartphone, the company announced that the POCO Launcher will be available on Google Play Store in the beta version starting August 29. Immediately, the same was leaked but it did not have all the mentioned features and capabilities.

Now, the POCO Launcher is listed on the Google Play Store with most features announced at the time of its launch. For now, this launcher is in the testing phase. Eventually, the listing on the Play Store states that it is an unreleased app.

POCO Launcher features

The Play Store version of the app comes with an app drawer and a search bar at the bottom. With the latter, you can search for a keyword, an app in the Mi App Store or an installed app. Like the Nova Launcher and other such third-party apps, this one also supports third-party icon packs and displays quick shortcuts for actions with a long press on the app icon. Notably, the long press can be done on any app on the home screen or app drawer.

One more interesting feature is that the launcher groups apps based on the color of the icon making it easy to access the apps. This is something that we have seen on the Google Play Store as it can group apps based on the colors and categories. Also, there is an open to hide an app. Though this feature is yet to be rolled out to the POCO Launcher, we can expect it to arrive soon. Interested users can download the app by visiting the APK download link.