Chinese tech giant Huawei on Tuesday (Oct. 22) released HarmonyOS NEXT, its self-developed operating system built independent of Android architecture.
The launch event, which attracted nearly 5,000 attendees in Shenzhen, where the company is based, marks another milestone for Huawei since Washington put it on the “Entity List” in 2019, barring it from doing business with U.S. firms including Google, which provides Android.
The event marked the beginning of the official public testing phase of China’s first homegrown mobile operating system, representing a significant breakthrough in the country’s information technology industry.
Previous versions of HarmonyOS still used some Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code in their system base, necessitating compatibility with certain Android applications.
HarmonyOS NEXT, the self-developed fifth iteration of HarmonyOS, has achieved significant improvements in system fluency, performance, and security features, while also ensuring the independence of the homegrown operating system.
The system has been installed on over one billion devices, said Yu Chengdong, Huawei’s executive director.
“In fact, our development team has gone through the path that others have gone through for 20 or 30 years in just 10 years. The battery life, security and privacy protection functions of the phone are very strong. The applications’ version is being developed iteratively everyday, and the update schedule is very, very fast. I estimate another two or three months may be enough time for our whole ecosystem to mature,” Yu said.
Over 15,000 native HarmonyOS applications and meta-services have been launched, covering 18 industries, with general office applications serving more than 38 million enterprises nationwide.
HarmonyOS NEXT has reduced the difficulty and cost of adopting the new system, improved fluency by 30 percent, and many applications are being updated with new versions every day.
HarmonyOS is an open-source operating system designed for various devices and scenarios, including intelligent screens, tablets, wearables and cars. It was first launched in August 2019 and has replaced Apple’s iOS to become the second-largest mobile operating system on the Chinese market after Google’s Android.