Huawei announces EMUI 11: All Features & Updates

Sudarshan Ravichandran — Thu, 10 Sep 2020 13:19:54 +0000

Earlier today at HDC (HUAWEI Developer Conference), the Chinese telecom giant announced EMUI 11 alongside HarmonyOS 2.0. The company has even released beta builds for 10 of its devices. However, unlike other OEMs, Huawei’s latest Android skin is based on Android 10 as the firm could not work with Google due to the US ban. Anyway, we can expect future builds to come with Android 11 as the search giant has now released the source code to AOSP.

EMUI 11 Beta on HUAWEI P40 Pro+

Now that we have clarity about the Android version, let us take a look at all the new features that EMUI 11 brings to HUAWEI and HONOR devices.

Long-Take Animations

If you have watched the movie 1917, you might be aware that the whole movie looks like it was shot in a single take. This method of filmmaking is known as “long-take” where the screen does not change.

https://www.gizmochina.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/EMUI-11-Animation.mp4

Huawei’s Human-Factors Engineering Research Lab designed the animations of EMUI 11 inspired by the long-take shots used in movies, as explained above. These are subtle animations that take place where the user’s eyesight is focussed by not disturbing the whole screen.

These can be found in certain system applications like Gallery and Calendar to name a few. It’s worth noting that similar animations can be also found in MIUI 12.

New Always On Display

Huawei brought some improvements to Always-on Displays (AOD) in its EMUI 10.1 earlier this year. Now, with EMUI 11, the AOD feature gets another facelift with support for DIY styles and a number of default styles inspired by the work of renowned painter Piet Mondrian. Talking about DIY styles, users can select any image, video or GIF of their choice.

EMUI 11 AOD

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What’s interesting is EMUI 11 AOD now looks and feels exactly like MIUI 12 AOD+. Even their settings page is identical.

Redesigned Gallery App

The stock Gallery app finally adds support for pinch to switch between pictures/videos between day and month view in the “Photos” tab. Whereas, the content in the “Albums” tab is now laid out in 4:3 aspect ratio with new settings to sort photos as XDA Developers points out.

EMUI 11 Gallery

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Live Icons

Xiaomi’s MIUI features live icons for certain system apps, which animates when users exit those apps. In MIUI 12, the company even implemented it for quick toggles in the new control center. On the other hand, live icons in EMUI 11 can be not only found in the notification panel but also inside certain system applications such as Phone, Huawei Music, Huawei Notepad, and more.

Multi-Screen Collaboration 3.0 & Smart Multi-Window

With newly introduced Smart Multi-Window feature, users can resize the windows of the floating apps and even switch between different such applications from a dock. On foldables like the company’s Mate X and Mate Xs, users can also open multiple floating apps just like on the Galaxy Z Fold2.

EMUI 11 Smart Multi-Window

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Further, Multi-Screen Collaboration 3.0 brings support to open up to three apps on the connected computer at a time. Users can now attend calls as well as use their device’s camera as a webcam. The new version also adds support to edit the documents stored on the laptop directly from the user’s EMUI device.

Privacy & Security

Just like fellow Chinese Android skins, Huawei’s EMUI 11 also now notifies the usage of camera, microphone, and GPS in the status bar. It also adds an option to share pictures without EXIF data.

Further, it also brings hidden albums and hidden memos for Gallery and Huawei Notes app respectively. That’s not all, a new Safety Cast feature restrains sensitive content to cast on the user’s output display.

EMUI 11 Beta & Rollout

Currently, the following 10 HUAWEI-branded devices are eligible for the beta program.

HONOR-branded devices like the HONOR 30 series, HONOR V30 series, and even the HUAWEI nova 7 series will be added in the program in the coming days. That said, Huawei is yet to announce the stable rollout timeline.

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