I have been a fan of MIUI ROMs since the early days when it was still in beta. I have to say, it became 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 weren't sure. Now, with Xioami devices, MIUI ROMs are gaining popularity.
When I asked some of my friends what was awesome, most of them mentioned that while design is usually the main factor when it comes to choosing a custom ROM, with MIUI it's is just an added benefit. The number of features that come with the ROM is what makes the difference.
And they were absolutely right. MIUI comes with lots of handy features that you don't get on Android and almost all of them are useful for everyday use. One of these features is the ability to see the network connectivity speed on the status bar in real time. The function can be activated from the Notice settings on droids running MIUI.
There is an Xposed module called Network Speed Indicator available for Android which adds the functionality to any Android device. So, if you care about your real-time connectivity speed and just want to make sure your cellular and Wi-Fi network speeds, let's install the module and see how it works. As I mentioned before, this is an Xposed framework module and you need to have it installed for the hack to work.
Cool tip: Lollipop users can also install Xposed now. Head over to our in-depth guide to see how this can be done.
Find the Network Speed Indicator module and install it. The mod is in a beta state and you must have beta installation enabled in the Xposed settings for the download option to appear. After successful installation, reboot the device for the changes to take effect. After the phone restarts, 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 set 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 fast for your eyes to capture it. The font can also be changed along with the colors to match your theme settings.
This is how you can get the download/upload speed of a Wi-Fi, 3G network right on the status bar. For iOS 8, there is no direct way to get the readings on the status bar, but there is an app on the app store using which you can add the speed widget to the drawer notification.
N Stats is a simple app for iOS 8 which can add RAM, internal space and data upload/download speed to notification widgets. iOS 7 and previous users can install it as Cydia tweak on device with jailbreak.
There are not many settings available on the app and you can just choose different colors for different display modules.
Here's how to get a MIUI-like network speedometer on Android and iOS. If you have any other ROM-specific tricks you'd like me to find a generalized solution to, please leave a comment and I'll definitely give it a try.
