Huawei Technologies announced HarmonyOS 5.0, aiming to accelerate adoption of the mobile operating system after China’s smartphone market grew significantly in a year thanks to breakthrough mobile processors.
The latest version of HarmonyOS (called HarmonyOS Next during the testing period when the OS moved away from its Android roots) already includes 15,000 native applications and services. Richard Yu ChendongChairman of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group said at an event on Tuesday.
Yu said the number of native applications has increased 10 times since June, when Huawei released the beta version of HarmonyOS Next. “In just one year, we have pioneered a new field and accomplished what foreign ecosystems have been doing for more than a decade,” Yu said.
HarmonyOS Next, which Huawei touts as being independently developed, no longer supports Android-based applications and is referred to as “pure-bred” HarmonyOS in China.
The company said public beta testing of HarmonyOS 5.0 began rolling out to Pura 70 and Pocket 2 series smartphones, and MatePad Pro tablets starting Tuesday.
It will be available on more devices next year, including the latest Trifold Mate XT According to the company, these are smartphones and mid-range Nova models. HarmonyOS Next is currently available on Huawei’s Mate 60 series, Mate X5 foldable smartphones, and 13.2-inch MatePad Pro tablet.
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Can Huawei’s smartphone OS “Harmony” compete with Google’s “Android” and Apple’s “iOS”?
Can Huawei’s smartphone OS “Harmony” compete with Google’s “Android” and Apple’s “iOS”?
