I have been a follower of MIUI ROMs since the initial days while it was still in beta. I must say, it has come out to be one of the best things that happened to Android. Not many people knew about it when it was available as a custom ROM and most users were unsure about it. Now with the Xioami devices, MIUI ROMs are gaining popularity.
When I asked some of my friends what’s great about it, most of them mentioned that although the design’s usually the main factor when it comes to choosing a custom ROM, with MIUI it’s just an added advantage. The number of features that come packed with the ROM is what makes the difference.
And they were absolutely right. MIUI comes with many handy features you don’t get on stock Android and almost all of them are helpful in everyday use. One such feature is the ability to see the network connectivity speed on the status bar in real time. The feature can be activated from the Notifications settings on droids running MIUI.
Part 1
Network Speed Indicator for Android
There’s an Xposed module called Network Speed Indicator, available for Android that adds the feature to any Android device. So if you do care about your connectivity speed in real time and just want to make sure what the speed is of your cellular and Wi-Fi network, let’s install the module and see how it works. As I already mentioned, this is an Xposed framework module and you must have that installed for the hack to work.
Cool tip: Lollipop users can also install Xposed now. Head over to our detailed guide to see how that can be done.
Search for the module Network Speed Indicator and install it. The module is in a beta state and you must have enabled the beta builds installation in the Xposed settings for the download option to appear. After the successful installation, reboot the device for the changes to take effect. After the phone reboots, you will see the speed indicator in the middle of the status bar, which will update the download /upload speed in real-time.
In the Network Speed Indicator settings, you can change the position of the indicator in the status bar. By default the unit changes dynamically, but you can fix it to KB/s and MB/s from the settings. The ideal update interval would be 1000ms or you won’t be able to see the speed. So it would be too quick for your eyes to capture. The font can also be changed with the colors to match your theme settings.
So that was how you can get the upload/download speed of a Wi-Fi, 3G network directly on the status bar. For iOS 8, there’s no direct way you can get the readings on the status bar, but there’s an app on the App Store using which you can add the speed widget in the notification drawer.
N Stats for iOS
N Stats is a simple App for iOS 8 that can add RAM, internal space, and data upload/download speed to the notification widgets. iOS 7 and previous users can install it as a Cydia tweak on a device with jailbreak.
There are not many settings available on the app and you can just choose different colors for different display modules.
So that was how can get a MIUI-like Network Speed Indicator on Android and iOS. If you have any other ROM-specific tricks you would like me to find a generalized solution, please drop a comment and I will definitely give it a try.
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