Huawei during its developer conference announced Harmony OS 2.0. This time, the OS sounds more ready, and the source code is open for download and tinkering. Built with cross-platform support in mind, the OS can power almost everything from smart TVs to cars, to watches.
Currently, the SDK Huawei has released targets such devices – watches, TVs, cars etc. – but come December, the company says they will release the smartphone SDK. With this timeline, we are now sure we will see the first smartphones running Harmony OS from around April 2021. Which means in 2021, you will finally -hopefully- be able to have the choice between iOS, Android and HarmonyOS when buying a new smartphone.
But that’s not all. Android Authority now says a Huawei representative has confirmed to them via email that already existing Huawei Smartphones may be upgraded to Harmony OS later on in the year.
It’s unclear if the upgrade to Harmony OS will be available to all devices running EMUI 11 or if Huawei will only offer the upgrade to certain devices running its new Android skin. It’s also unclear if this will be a mandatory change or an optional upgrade. It nevertheless makes for a pretty interesting proposition, and it could be an intriguing alternative platform for Google-free devices like the Mate 30 series and P40 series.
Android Authority
However it works, this will be an exciting path both for Huawei users who are currently quite limited with what they can do with their devices since the Google Ban, and for Huawei itself. If the upgrade to EMUI 11 devices is rolled out on a massive scale, Huawei could really start off on the right footing having millions of devices already running their new OS.
It is important to note that as of now the public hasn’t yet seen Harmony OS, and that building a whole smartphone OS isn’t an easy task to undertake within a few months. So there will definitely be a lot of issues when we see the first Harmony OS smartphone.
Huawei also announced during the developer conference that it now has over 1.8 Million developers on board with over 96,000 apps being integrated with the Huawei Mobile Services Core worldwide. This means that whenever Harmony OS goes live on smartphones, the company may have already dealt with two big issues that faces new Operating Systems – developer support, and availability of apps.
Would you buy a Harmony OS device? Or would you update your current EMUI 11 Huawei device to Harmony OS?
