At the Huawei Developers Conference 2019 earlier this month in China, the Chinese giant finally announced HarmonyOS, its homegrown operating system. This is the same OS that was in the news as HongMeng OS, the Chinese name for the HarmonyOS.
This in-house developed operating system from Huawei was touted to replace the Android mobile operating system for its smartphones. But, the company has now said that it has no plans to launch a HarmonyOS-powered smartphone this year and it wants to maintain a single ecosystem and stick with Google’s platform.
Huawei Senior Vice President Vincent Yang said that the company wants to maintain one standard and one ecosystem. He also added that Harmony would serve as an option B for the company, in case it cannot use Android.
He also hinted that the company’s upcoming flagship smartphone, the Huawei Mate 30 Pro, will be running Android operating system out-of-the-box. However, if the US government enforces the ban, Huawei would switch to Harmony on its phones, but that move wouldn’t happen until the last minute when the company would be shut out from Android.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Huawei will be launching a new budget smartphone in China by the end of this year which will be powered by the newly announced HarmonyOS or the HongMeng OS as it is called in China. The phone, expected to Mate 30 Lite, was reported to be priced around 2,000 Yuan (roughly $288). However, it now seems that the phone is not getting launched this year.
This is not shocking at all and we can understand why Huawei is reluctant to commit to HarmonyOS as a mobile operating system. The software has just debuted earlier this month and there’s virtually no app support. Earlier, the company had said that the platform is cleaner than Android and has far fewer lines of codes, and is meant to power other smart products like cars, televisions, and smartwatches.
(Source)
