Mi Box 3 gets Android 8 Oreo!

[SooKee]

Updated this on the "Mi Box in BKK" thread but the update might be missed on that thread due to the title and figure it's important enough to get it's own thread.  Updated mine last night and it all went as well as I expected.  Not normally that bothered about updates per se unless they bring specific thinks I want, in this case it does:

 

Current Android TV home screen (my Shield and Mi now look identical)

 

Ability to decide what Channels are shown on the Home Screen and remove reference to crap I'm not interested in and no 'in yer face' advertising from those services.

 

Ability to have more than one Google account on the device (I use separate accounts for Play Store purchases and general use like YouTube and Maps, girlfriend also has her own YouTube channels with saved playlists, subscriptions, library etc so it's easy to switch now, real PITFA before!)

 

Google Assistant works surprisingly well with the Mi remote, great to be able to say "TV off" and have the Mi turn itself and the TV off too via CEC.

 

All in all, an excellent update.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Generally agree with your comments above.

 

But the first thing that stood out to me in the update was the bucketful of mostly U.S. centric 3rd party streaming apps that someone -- Xiaomi and/or Google -- have bundled into the OS firmware -- Netflix, Sling TV, Red Bull, Pandora, Showtime, CBS All Access, Hulu and Vudu. None of which you can remove, but all of which you can go into settings and disable so they don't show up if you don't want/use them.

 

In addition, upon startup, not only were all those apps automatically there (and most of them I had not installed and was not using on my own before), but I also got a prompt for a free day offer to use Sling TV, and more oddly, a screen that gave me the option to make a setting where apparently SlingTV would automatically launch by default every time I turned on my MiBox -- none of which I wanted.

 

My general beef with this is I love have the choice to choose and install all kinds of different apps. But I really dislike where the device manufacturer bundles apps into the OS firmware so they're there for good. But I'm assuming that's a financial decision, and presumably Xiaomi and/or Google are getting some money from each of those apps/services for forcing them all onto all MiBox Oreo users.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

 

 

 

In the end, these were the apps that showed up at the top of the system created Favorites list, none of which I wanted or had chosen to install.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Basically, as some have said before, the home screen for the MiBox Oreo ends up looking a lot like the current Fire TV interface (without the Amazon ads and promos) -- consisting of a lot of horizontal channel/app specific rows of content. But the one main difference it seems to me, is with Fire TV, you're largely stuck with the Channel categories that Amazon has determined, whereas at least with the Android TV Mi Box, you have the option to go into Settings / Home Screen / and then Customize Channels to either turn on or off the individual home screen content horizontal rows from each provider.

 

Most of the individual apps/services only have the option to show or hide one horizontal row "channel" of their content on the home screen. But for some reason, YouTube and RedBull TV have the option to display some or all of up to six different "channels"/content rows for each. But not all Android TV apps are compatible with home screen content rows yet, as while regular YouTube is, for some reason YouTube TV (the cable TV replacement service from Google) is not.

 

 

[SooKee]

Strange. The only app I thought that showed up random for me was Red Bull which I took off. That said it was really late when I updated so they may well have been there.  Just went and looked (never got round to checking if they could be uninstalled last night) and yes , as TGJ said, they are system apps so can only be disabled.  Yellow card!!  I find the Red Bull takes up less space if you roll back the update first then clear data and disable.  The others are taking little or nothing so I'm not so concerned, but I also don't like bloatware.  All disabled so they won't keep polling for updates.

Channels wise. I find You Tube useless. It's not customisable yet with enough options. Just shows 'Trending in Thailand'. Better for me if it would select from my subscriptions or library and esp if it would allow pick up from a partially played vid.  You Tube for me only shown one Channel, not 6,  so I'm not sure what's happening there.  What are the others?  Any use?  Playlists or subscriptions would appeal to me.  Nothing else.

Play Next is useless to me too. Just another row taken up with very few apps that can use it. At least here. Netflix isn't compatible. Despite it being listed as a Play Next option. I disabled it.

Netflix, Kodi (18), Plex and Spotify all work well though, the apps, aside from iFlix, that I use most anyway.  Nice that you can juggle the rows up and down too.  Bonus as I say, if you have a Shield, the screens are now identical.  CEC works much better for me on the Mi now too as does Google Assistant with 'TV Off' and 'Volume up /down'.

 

OT but I used to use Terrarium a lot but for me it's gone from being one of the best apps to one of the worst in the space of 6 months.  Bloody annoying ads that last for ages and for which it's hard to exit from and it tries to force you to use the even worse Yes Player.  I still use VLC by having the app to allow me to select "Player Action" each time I run it, which these days is as a last resort.
 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

47 minutes ago, SooKee said:

Strange. The only app I thought that showed up random for me was Red Bull which I took off. That said it was really late when I updated so they may well have been there.  Just went and looked (never got round to checking if they could be uninstalled last night) and yes , as TGJ said, they are system apps so can only be disabled.  Yellow card!!  I find the Red Bull takes up less space if you roll back the update first then clear data and disable.  The others are taking little or nothing so I'm not so concerned, but I also don't like bloatware.  All disabled so they won't keep polling for updates.

 

 

The apps section under Settings has two listings -- one for downloaded apps first, and then beneath that, a second separate section for system apps.  At least on my upgrade, all of the ones I listed above were installed by the OS as system apps.

 

Quote

Netflix, Sling TV, Red Bull, Pandora, Showtime, CBS All Access, Hulu and Vudu.

 

My box is a U.S. purchase version bought direct from Xiaomi U.S.  So I don't know if everyone around the world has gotten the same Oreo image, or there have been some customizations by region.

 

In my box's case, you absolutely couldn't miss the Sling TV app install, since it brought up a full screen menu asking if you wanted to have the Sling app launch with every restart of the MiBox.

 

As I posted above, this below was a partial image of what my default Favorites menu looked like when the Oreo update was completed, before I touched or customized anything -- all a bunch of apps I hadn't previously installed and don't really want or use (except for Hulu).

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

As for YouTube, when I launched the app for the first time via Oreo, it popped up with me signed into the same Google account as I had been signed in on for the prior YT app under MM. And, if I click left once and down once, it takes me to the menu of all my subscribed/followed channels under YT.

 

But within the device's setting menu under Home Page and Channels, here's the six YT channels I have the option to show or hide from my Home Screen.

 

 

Do we have the same, or different, Oreo firmware?

 

 

 

BTW, sorry for the blurry photos above. I just realized, when my MiBox updated, for some reason it defaulted to a 480p display setting even though its attached TV is 720p. So I've fixed that now, but the photos predated that.

 

 

[SooKee]

Get back tomorrow. I Def don't have those six Channels (all of them equally useless though). Will compare the firmware too.

Sent using Tapatalk

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

As for internal device storage, I'm not sure what happened. Before I started the upgrade from MM, I had just about 1 GB free of internal storage. After the Oreo update was complete, with the added system apps and my prior apps carried over, the storage setting now shows I have 2.5 GB free. Dunno where that came from.

 

 

But one thing I did notice was, for some of the added default system apps there was a big difference size-wise before and after disabling them:

 

--Netflix started out at 88 MB, and was down to 6 MB after disabling.

--SlingTV started out at almost 75 MB, and was down to 10 MB after disabling.

--CBS All-Access, on the other hand, barely moved from 12 MB before and after.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I gotta say, it wouldn't make much sense for Xiaomi and/or Google to bake in as system apps a bunch of U.S.-only streaming services like SlingTV and CBS All-Access and Hulu for MiBox users around the world, including in Asia.

 

But, I also haven't seen or heard any confirmation as yet that their are different builds of the Oreo update for different markets.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

This item is primarily for American users, but may apply for some other countries as well:

 

If you have access to a cable TV subscription or OTT streaming service that allows you to authenticate and unlock the various cable TV channel apps available on the MiBox for full content and live streaming, you'll find that the Oreo update has entirely undone/disconnected all those connections you may have setup under MM.

 

Meaning, if you want to continue/resume using those apps in a full/unlocked mode, you'll have to take the time to go into each app, typically go into the settings menu and the sign-in area there, get an authentication code, and then go to the service's website for app activation, enter the code, select your particular cable TV/OTT provider, and then enter your log-in credentials for that provider.

 

It can be a fairly time-consuming, mind-numbing process, but fortunately, only needs to be done once -- at least until/unless there is another major firmware update. The kind of cable TV apps where this process comes into play -- if you want to use them in full unlocked mode -- are ones like ABC, NBC, Fox, FX, Fox Sports Go, ESPN, CNN, CNBC, and some others.

 

[Pib]

Thanks for the heads up.   About an hour ago I did an update check on my Mi box 3....been around 3 days since I had done an update check.  The Oreo update is available...615.8MB in size...takes a minute or two to download since I'm on an AIS 200Mb speed plan...another minute or two to install.   

 

At the tail end of the update process a screen is offered to install 13 additional apps consisting of: MX Player, Facebook, AccuWeather, Plex, Showtime, CBS All Access, Hulu,TV, ESPN, VLC, Pluto TV, Spotify Music, and HBO Go.  Several were already checked for install...I unchecked most of them....but could not uncheck for install 3 apps which were checked and greyed-out to where you could not uncheck them....these 3 apps were identified as from Xiaomi....and if I remember right were Hulu, CBS all Access, and Showtime....guess these will be system apps/bloatware, but I haven't double checked yet to see if I can uninstall them versus just deactivating them.

 

After I get through the install I only do a Google Play update check and there were no apps needing update.  Then I did a Youtube check.   I started 50 videos on the first try successfully and actually I think it was 52 as I lost count a few times and played it safe by starting a few extra to ensure tested 50 videos. 

This is the first time in many Youtube testing session I was able to achieve a 100% first try start rate. 

 

I then played around for a few minutes in various menus/apps....then went back and did another Youtube test....did a 10 video test....all 10 started on first try.   So, it looks like the Youtube problem many Mi box owners such as myself were experiencing has been fixed with the Oreo update....awesome.   I will play more with the Mi box over the coming days....and I think I'm now going to order another one since the Youtube appears to be fixed.

 

Just before and after doing the Mi box 3 Oreo check/upgrade I also did several update checks on my Nvidia Shield since supposedly the public release of their Oreo update is now flowing.  Thought it would be neat to get both boxes updated to Oreo on the same day.   But the Oreo update was not available for me yet....expect I'm still in Nvidia's queue for update.

 

So, for me the Xiaomi Mi box 3 got the "public release" Oreo update before my Nvidia Shield box which is still in the queue line I guess for the Oreo public release.   By public release I mean a person not enrolled in the beta release program.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

20 minutes ago, Pib said:

At the tail end of the update process a screen is offered to install 13 additional apps consisting of: MX Player, Facebook, AccuWeather, Plex, Showtime, CBS All Access, Hulu,TV, ESPN, VLC, Pluto TV, Spotify Music, and HBO Go.  Several were already checked for install...I unchecked most of them....but could not uncheck for install 3 apps which were checked and greyed-out to where you could not uncheck them....these 3 apps were identified as from Xiaomi....and if I remember right were Hulu, CBS all Access, and Showtime....guess these will be system apps/bloatware, but I haven't double checked yet to see if I can uninstall them versus just deactivating them.

 

 

Pib, if you go into the apps section under settings, as I mentioned above, you'll see a top section and a lower section of apps. The first top section is your downloaded apps, that you can uninstall completely as desired. The second lower section is the MiBox's system apps, which you can't uninstall, but can disable. On my box, Hulu, CBS All Access and Showtime were just a few of a much longer group of particular streaming service apps that were baked into the firmware of the OS update I received.

 

AFAIK, Hulu, Showtime and CBS All Access are 100% U.S. resident-only available services at present -- unless someone engages in tech trickery.

 

[SooKee]

Uninstall latest update on the system apps where you can. It reduces the footprint slightly. Then clear data add disable.

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[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I'll just add one thing re the much ballyhoo'd home page Channels feature that Oreo has added:

 

Upon my initial Oreo install, I think pretty much all of my installed apps that support the home page Channels had that feature enabled, so my home page was filled with row after row of app content. And, I took a good look at all of that and decided that basically, I didn't want any of it cluttering up my home screen. So I turned off all of those app home page Channel settings.

 

It's one thing is you just want a lot of colorful program-specific tiles filling up your home page to avoid seeing the blank wallpaper behind them. I'm not really looking for that. And in my case, it might have been different if the Channels displayed actually picked up content that I was already interested in, such as pulling from my app-specific favorites or watch lists. But AFAICT, the content that was getting pulling into the home page Channel tiles was just generic and didn't reflect my choices in the apps at all. But let me add as a caveat, I'm not currently using Netflix, so I can't speak to how that app functions with Channels.

 

So right now, I've got my big apps button, and my one row of Favorited apps running horizontally across the top of the screen, the search icon and the Gear Settings icon, and not much else.  But I do have a lot of free space to work with, if I can find some way to populate it with things I'm actually interested in.

 

[Pib]

There is some early indication by some Mi box users the Mi box Oreo update included Treble support.  Are these users correct....I don't know.

 

https://9to5google.com/2018/06/26/xiaomi-mi-box-android-oreo-tv/

 

[Pib]

I used that Terminux emulator to check for Treble support on the Mi Box 3 after the Oreo update....and the answer was "True" which means yes to Treble support.

[SooKee]

@Pib Out of interest, how many YouTube Channels do you have available? TGJIB has six (all of which are useless to me), I only have one 'Trending in Thailand'.  Pass.  The YouTube channel will only be useful to me once it can show Subscriptions or maybe partially watched videos to resume.  As it stands I only use Netflix, Spotify, Kodi (which needs Kodi 18) and Plex.

 

Play Next I've disabled.  Could never figure why Netflix appears in the list of Play Next options despite it being not supported.

 

Still, it's a great update and delivers all I wanted from it.  At least for now.

[Pib]

25 minutes ago, SooKee said:

@Pib Out of interest, how many YouTube Channels do you have available? TGJIB has six (all of which are useless to me), I only have one 'Trending in Thailand'.  Pass.  The YouTube channel will only be useful to me once it can show Subscriptions or maybe partially watched videos to resume.  As it stands I only use Netflix, Spotify, Kodi (which needs Kodi 18) and Plex.

 

Play Next I've disabled.  Could never figure why Netflix appears in the list of Play Next options despite it being not supported.

 

Still, it's a great update and delivers all I wanted from it.  At least for now.

Mine only shows two YouTube channels when going into the customize area....the two available are Recommended and Trending.     Not the six YouTube channels choices like TG gets.

 

But the RedBull area allows 6 channels.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Re YouTube, could the variations possibly have something to do with what country the YT account on your device is based in? For my device, it kept and retained the Google / YouTube account sign ins that had existed in MM and carried them over to Oreo. And in my case, those were U.S. based accounts.

 

I did read in some of the internet threads on the subject some people saying that they did get a Subscriptions channel for YT, but that it effectively wasn't working, and only showed like one subscription but not all the others a person had. As I posted above, my YT channels section has a bunch of horrible junky preset categories, and nothing about my YT subscriptions. I'm confused...

 

Re the Oreo update, someone asked in one of the pertinent Reddit threads for users to report the build number on their device and their country. And thus far, the U.S. folks and a few international folks were all reporting exactly the same build number. Of course, what country someone is using the device in isn't necessarily the same as where the device was sourced from.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On the subject of launchers, when you guys get a chance, you might delve into the "Home" app on the MiBox.

 

 

When I ran it the first time, it appeared to give me the choice of selecting a default launcher for the device, including an alternate launcher app I already had on the device. Once I made a selection, I'm pretty sure it went with that choice. But in order to get back to the menu for choosing a launcher, I had to go in and delete the cache and saved data for "Home," and then it would give me the launcher menu choices again.

 

I'm not sure whether the "Home" app setting triggers on the start of the MiBox, or only when you actually click the "Home" app icon. I think it may be the latter as opposed to launching by default.  Oddly though, I also had the Hal Launcher installed on my MiBox both before and after the Oreo update, and it isn't listed on the initial menu I got via "Home".

 

 

[SooKee]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

Mine only shows two YouTube channels when going into the customize area....the two available are Recommended and Trending.     Not the six YouTube channels choices like TG gets.

 

But the RedBull area allows 6 channels.

Thanks.  Same here re (the now disabled) Red Bull.  Only one for me on YT, Trending in Thailand.  Odd folks are getting different options on YT.

[Pib]

On 6/26/2018 at 7:20 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

As for YouTube, when I launched the app for the first time via Oreo, it popped up with me signed into the same Google account as I had been signed in on for the prior YT app under MM. And, if I click left once and down once, it takes me to the menu of all my subscribed/followed channels under YT.

 

But within the device's setting menu under Home Page and Channels, here's the six YT channels I have the option to show or hide from my Home Screen.

 

 

Do we have the same, or different, Oreo firmware?

 

 

 

BTW, sorry for the blurry photos above. I just realized, when my MiBox updated, for some reason it defaulted to a 480p display setting even though its attached TV is 720p. So I've fixed that now, but the photos predated that.

 

 

 

My Mi Box reflects the same info as above expect I have a long Netflix ESN number where yours doesn't show any.  And instead of 6 YT channels, I only have 2 YT channels....Recommended and Trending.   My Google/YT account was created/registered in the U.S. before I moved to Thailand a decade ago.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, Pib said:

 

My Mi Box reflects the same info as above expect I have a long Netflix ESN number where yours doesn't show any.  And instead of 6 YT channels, I only have 2 YT channels....Recommended and Trending.   My Google/YT account was created/registered in the U.S. before I moved to Thailand a decade ago.

 

I'm at a loss. No idea how to account for these kinds of variations.

 

BTW, I'm not using Netflix on my MiBox right now, and am not sure I ever have in the past.

 

[Pib]

I logged onto YT via computer browser and changed the location from Thailand to the U.S. and then logged out. Then turned the Mi box on, logged onto YT and now I had 3 YT channel choices...Recommended, Trending and Subcriptoins.

And now I'm going to bed...will probably dream of Oreo cookies.

[SooKee]

12 hours ago, Pib said:

I logged onto YT via computer browser and changed the location from Thailand to the U.S. and then logged out. Then turned the Mi box on, logged onto YT and now I had 3 YT channel choices...Recommended, Trending and Subcriptoins.

And now I'm going to bed...will probably dream of Oreo cookies.

Yes it seems there has been a YT update and you should now get those options, same for me now on the Shield and Mi.  Getting there!!  For me, Subscriptions is not working as it should as it shows only videos from one subscriptions.  Will see if that varies once I go into the app and change a few.

[Pib]

I couldn't help myself this morning by doing another test to see if the Mi box starts each YT video on first try after its Oreo upgrade.  I randomly picked 50 videos and each started on the first try.   Yeap, the YT problem on the Mi box experienced by many (like me) was fixed with its Oreo update. Before upgrade to Oreo only about 80% of the videos would start on first try....sometimes I would have to try to start a video several times to get it to play...and few simply would not play.   Before the Mi box Oreo upgrade I used the app named SmartYoutube to get-around this Mi box YT problem as SmartYoutube started YT videos on first try 100% of the time....just like the official Youtube app is now doing on the Mi box after the Oreo upgrade. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Weird....  I don't know why or how this happened. But this morning, given all the comments above, I went into the official YT app on my MiBox and signed out of the U.S. account it had been using (the one that was giving me 6 home screen channel choices after the Oreo update), and then also cleared the app's cache.

 

Then signed back into the same U.S. YT account that I'd been using before, and then went to check again the home screen channels item under Settings for the YT app. And now it's showing me only two home screen channels available -- Recommended and Subscriptions. And all of the other dorky 6 channels it had been showing me before have vanished. Which, is perfectly fine by me!

 

----------------------------------

 

Another oddity about the official YT app on the MiBox vs the Smart YouTube unofficial app. After adding a couple of extra Google accounts to my MiBox last night, I was playing around with how and whether those additional Google/YT accounts/profiles would be available via either of the YouTube apps.

 

Once I added the other Google accounts to my MiBox, when I go into the official YT app, it shows me only the account I'm currently signed into, and doesn't have any option for directly changing to a different Google account for use with YT. The only way I see any choice of the other Google accounts is to sign out of the current Google account in YT, then when I go to sign back in, then it shows me a list of all my available Google log-ins. I find that a bit on the cumbersome side.

 

However, with the Smart YouTube unofficial app, when I go to the sign-in section within its Settings, even when I'm signed in already to one Google account, it still shows me a list of other Google accounts that are available to use. And then, if you choose that other Google account and then click a button that says "Use This Account", it automatically switches your SYT app to that other profile -- without having to do any kind of logging out and then logging back in. So pretty much seamless account switching within the app. Really like that.

 

But that notwithstanding, I have two main YT accounts/profiles that I use for different kinds of subject matter. So right now, I have both the official YT app and the Smart YT app installed on my MiBox. And the official app is configured to one user account/profile, while the Smart YT app is configured to my other main YT account profile. So that way, I have pretty much immediate access to both accounts/profiles, depending on which app I choose to open and use.

 

So, if I want saved YT sources about Thai porn, I open one app. If I want saved YT sources about Donald Trump, I open my other unofficial YT app. Pretty handy...  

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

17 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

On the subject of launchers, when you guys get a chance, you might delve into the "Home" app on the MiBox.

 

 

When I ran it the first time, it appeared to give me the choice of selecting a default launcher for the device, including an alternate launcher app I already had on the device. Once I made a selection, I'm pretty sure it went with that choice. But in order to get back to the menu for choosing a launcher, I had to go in and delete the cache and saved data for "Home," and then it would give me the launcher menu choices again.

 

I'm not sure whether the "Home" app setting triggers on the start of the MiBox, or only when you actually click the "Home" app icon. I think it may be the latter as opposed to launching by default.  Oddly though, I also had the Hal Launcher installed on my MiBox both before and after the Oreo update, and it isn't listed on the initial menu I got via "Home".

 

 

 

Just a followup and confirmation on this above -- Using the Home app for the first time on the Oreo MiBox does give you the option to set an alternative launcher program that will run automatically and seamlessly once your device is turned on/restarted.

 

Prior to Oreo and after, I had two different alternate launcher apps on my MiBox -- TV Launcher and one called HALauncher. When I clicked the MiBox's Home app button for the first time after Oreo was installed, it brought up the photo above giving me the choice to select either the default MiBox launcher or my own installed TV Launcher. For reasons I don't know or understand, the menu list doesn't seem to show the HALauncher as being available to choose....

 

At any rate, I eventually ended up deciding to try the TV Launcher as the default launcher by choosing it via the Home app menu. And right now, I never see the default MiBox home screen and favorites list at all. When I start or reboot my MiBox, it automatically opens up to the home screen for the TV Launcher app, which is fine for me.

 

And as I mentioned above, once you've made a launcher choice via the Home app selection, AFAICT, the only way to get the menu choices to reappear again via that app is to go into settings, choose that app, and then erase its data and cache. Then the next time you choose the Home app after that, it should open with the menu of available choices. Once you've made a choice, pressing the Home app again at that point simply takes you to the launcher home screen that you've selected.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On a different front, gotta say, the TuneIn radio app on the MiBox post Oreo is still a mess. No favorites available. No account sign-in available. Not even any history of your recently played stations.

 

The only good things I can say are, there's still a huge number of channels available, and the app still plays even if you navigate away to do other things on your MiBox. Although, of course, if you start playing some other audio or video source, at that point, it will kill the prior (in this case TuneIn) app.