Huawei has announced the launch of the new operating system HarmonyOS NEXT, which it developed in-house for its various devices. This system features an innovative user interface and applications specific to it, along with significant performance improvements, indicating Huawei’s complete abandonment of the Android system.
Huawei first launched HarmonyOS in 2019 as a response to the sanctions imposed by the United States, which prevented the company from using the Android system and Google services. These sanctions led to a significant decline in the company’s smartphone sales worldwide.
In 2020, Huawei expanded the use of HarmonyOS to include various mobile devices, modifying the system to be compatible with millions of devices. Initially, the system’s interface and software features resembled the EMUI interface specific to Android, leading to criticism of the system as a modified version of Android.
Over time, Huawei completely separated HarmonyOS from Android and limited HarmonyOS availability to the Chinese market, where most of its devices are sold. The first version of HarmonyOS relied on support for Android applications due to the lack of an independent application system.
Later, Huawei leveraged the base of developers working on the EMUI interface, gradually transitioning them to work on HarmonyOS, adding millions of developers to the system over the past three years.
Last year, Huawei announced the development of an original version of HarmonyOS that only supports applications designed for it, abandoning support for running Android applications. This sparked significant interest in the tech community in the potential competition of this system with iOS and Android. Recently, Huawei confirmed that HarmonyOS is now available on over 100 million devices.
Over the past two years, Huawei has been working on improving HarmonyOS NEXT in collaboration with Chinese tech companies to create original applications for the system. The number of these applications has exceeded 15,000, strengthening the system’s position in the market.
HarmonyOS NEXT boasts significant performance improvements, providing visually smooth graphics, smoother motion effects, as well as enhancements in security and deeper integration with artificial intelligence.
HarmonyOS NEXT will be rolled out on flagship devices in the Chinese market, such as the Mate 60 and Pura 70 smartphones and the MatePad Pro, with availability expanding to more devices in the coming months.
