In the seven long time since CEO Richard Yu ’s notorious devout keynote speech at CES 2018 , Huawei has faced a rollercoaster that would rock any brand . At the height of its orbicular popularity , Huawei was added to the US Entities list , which strangle its ability to enter the best processors and technology on the market .
The restrictions forced Huawei to rule alternative solutions quickly . The solution to many Trygve Lie in HarmonyOS , an operating organisation that Huawei has been developing for years and that powers many of its wearable , tablet , and IoT products .
Despite the limitation against it , Huawei continues to innovate and press the boundaries of smartphones . twist like the world ’s first tri - fold smartphone , theHuawei Mate XT Ultimate , and the tablet - sizing flip phone , theHuawei Pura X , run on HarmonyOS .
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After spending some prison term with the Mate XT and the Pura X , could HarmonyOS be a viable competitor chopine to iOS andAndroid ? Like all things Huawei , the answer is complicated , made more so by the two generations of HarmonyOS .
A brief history of HarmonyOS
In the eighteen month follow the CES keynote , Huawei accelerated plans to set in motion a homegrown platform and , in June 2019 , it announced HarmonyOS . The program is for far more than just smartphones ; it ’s designed to be a unified platform that can power all devices in the Huawei ecosystem .
Counterpoint Research shows that HarmonyOS is already the third - largest smartphone platform , with approximately 4 % of global market share . More importantly , at least for the myopic term , is the company ’s market share in China , which continue to rise and recently surpassed iOS to become the number two platform in the public ’s grownup smartphone market .
Key to this growth is a focus on modern hardware pair with HarmonyOS . It ’s still incredibly open for smartphones but can support a all-encompassing mountain chain of devices , and the unified platform approach path assure cross - compatibility . It even runs in Huawei ’s first co - developed car , the AITO M5 .
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HarmonyOS and HarmonyOS Next are different.
The Huawei Pura X marks an interesting second for Huawei . Previous generations of HarmonyOS occur with Android libraries pre - installed on the gimmick , making it easy for third - party developers like MicroG to assist you quickly install and enable all Google services on your phone .
This means the tri - fold Mate XT Ultimate has access to the full suite of free rein Store apps , including easy sign - on . It ’s not as unflawed as if it had been preinstalled , but it work yet , and it means the experience is largely the same with some quirks .
As the name suggest , HarmonyOS Next is the next generation of HarmonyOS . One huge difference of opinion : this variation was develop to support aboriginal HarmonyOS apps and ships without preinstalled Android kernels . The answer ? You need to apply third - political party app stores to be able to put in and run some of the most popular apps . This is where things are intimate , but still challenging .
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Yes, there’s an app gap, but it’s surprising
To understand the viability of HarmonyOS Next right now , I installed the EasyAbroad app byfollowing this picture . Once done , it offered a selection of westerly apps that it recall I might want to establish . There are cite of MicroG services , so this is an evolution of MicroG for HarmonyOS Next machine . However , does it have all the central apps ?
Here ’s the quick sum-up : uncouth apps like Google Maps , Chrome , Uber , Starbucks , and YouTube are uncommitted , as are Airbnb , Booking.com , Gmail , Pinterest , ChatGPT , and Amazon . There are others , but many are n’t uncommitted . Some example admit banking apps , most cyclosis service , and alternative single-valued function solutions like Waze . There ’s no Google Assistant or Gemini app , but this is to be expect . Other available apps include Google Docs and Sheets , Google Drive , Dropbox , and Steam .
Then there are the really important apps . Social networks like Facebook , Instagram , Messenger , and X ( aka Twitter ) are all usable . Although TikTok is also available , it ’s listed in Mandarin , so it may not be the planetary version . Messaging apps like WhatsApp , WA Business , Telegram , and Signal are also uncommitted . Looking for food delivery apps ? you could easy install Uber Eats ( and Uber ) , Doordash , Just Eat , Deliveroo , and many more .
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The previous version of HarmonyOS offered a much wider survival , yet the apps run swimmingly , and the Pura X is particularly rapid at campaign any task . Huawei has reinforced the deterrent example that Apple taught the industry : if you control the computer hardware and the software , you could offer a highly optimized experience .
Beyond apps, this is mostly familiar and fast.
What if the app gap did n’t survive ? HarmonyOS Next is still reasonably new and have a substantive architecture modification , so there in all probability has n’t been enough time to port more apps . take on the company or third - political party developer can bridge the app gap , what about the rest of the platform and interface ?
If this were to find , HarmonyOS Next could be a viable competition to Android . It has many similarity with other Android interfaces , like Honor and Oppo . There ’s a split up command sum reminiscent of Oppo , and a preferences menu that remind me of the iPhone . Huawei has been inspired by the best division of many other interfaces , and the result is a majuscule interface to habituate .
If you invest in the Huawei ecosystem , HarmonyOS will serve your want as well as Android or iOS , if not practiced in some ways . Huawei ’s aboriginal App Gallery has every pop local app , and the third - party app memory have even more you may want to install .
Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends
HarmonyOS Next runs on over 1 billion machine across various form factors , and with over 2 million developer reportedly onboard , it ’s likely that many of the miss apps will eventually become usable . HarmonyOS is already the secondly - large platform in the world ’s biggest market , but Android has a 64 % market portion in China , meaning HarmonyOS wo n’t surpass it anytime presently .
HarmonyOS is evenhandedly telling , but there is a much larger scholarship breaking ball than switching from iOS to Android or frailty versa . Still , Huawei has developed many procedure to replace core service offered as part of GMS , and the result is a suave platform that ’s very pleasant to use . Devices like the Mate 60 , Pura X , and Mate XT Ultimate will continue to ensure that the number of user continue to grow .
