As scheduled, Honor took wraps off the latest version of its mobile operating system — MagicOS 8.0, in China. The OS arrives with platform-level AI and intent-based user interface (IUI).

The brand also announced MagicLM, a proprietary on-device large language model. George Zhao, CEO of Honor, says that the company’s new software is a significant step towards bringing next-generation human-device interaction and ecosystem to users.

Honor MagicOS 8 Launch

MagicOS 8.0 brings improvements in four areas: smart connectivity, performance, privacy and security, and visual aesthetics

Magic Portal is the branding Honor is using for its intent-based user interface. In simpler words, it is a shortcut recommendation feature that lets users switch between app services with just a swipe.

At launch, Magic Portal already supports over 100 popular apps in China. These applications are spread across categories, like travel, productivity, social, search, entertainment, shopping, and food. Some of the most-used apps include Baidu Map, Amap, Didi, Bilibili, Douyin, Youku, and Alipay.

Further, MagicLM with seven billion parameters operates at a platform level with data processing on the device for enhanced privacy. Honor has partnered with Qualcomm to run it smoothly and efficiently on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform.

Apart from standard natural language understanding capabilities, MagicLM is also capable of generating videos and is the first in the industry to allow users to locate a specific frame in their videos. It is also integrated with the voice assistant YOYO.

Besides, Honor launched an LLM Ecosystem Program in China. This initiative promotes the integration of cloud-based and vertical AI models into MagicOS. Partners, such as Amap, Baidu, and Umetrip, will launch their experiences in the first half of 2024.

MagicRing, which was introduced in MagicOS 7.0 enables cross-device functionalities. The feature now supports connections from point-to-point networks to fully connected networks.

It is now 25% more power-efficient with a whopping 500% improvement in speed. It supports eight transmission channels to allow calls, notifications, keyboard and mouse, files, app windows, and photos to seamlessly flow across devices.

As for privacy, MagicOS 8.0 comes with system-wide Parallel Spaces. Users can move files to private space through Magic Portal. A new shake-to-block ads feature helps in eliminating intrusive pop-up ads. Lastly, all AI processing of personal data happens securely on the device.

MagicOS 8.0 will make its debut on the Honor Magic 6 series tomorrow (January 11). It will be rolled out to a plethora of devices in the coming days.

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