Huawei: there will be no HarmonyOS phones this year

[midian182]

What just happened? Huawei says that despite unveiling what could be an alternative operating system to Android, the company has no plans to launch a smartphone powered by its HarmonyOS this year—unless it’s forced to.

At the start of the month, Huawei unveiled what most people already knew: it had long been working on an operating system of its own, called HarmonyOS. The news came after it filed trademarks for the system, and even though an executive had said it wasn’t designed for smartphones, it was reported that the firm was testing a smartphone running the OS.

At an event in New York yesterday, Huawei Senior Vice President Vincent Yang said the company didn’t plan to launch a smartphone running HarmonyOS this year. Not too surprisingly, the Chinese giant would prefer it if its phones continued to be powered by Android.

"We want to maintain one standard, one ecosystem," Yang said, as reported by CNET.

But that isn’t to say a HarmonyOS phone definitely won’t happen in 2019. Huawei’s placement on an entity list earlier this year has thrown its future relationship with Google into doubt. The company was granted a 90-day reprieve from the ban to give customers time to transition, and on Monday the Commerce Department extended that by another 90 days, but it’s unclear what will happen when that time is up.

Talked with the Huawei executive to clarify his comments. He said Huawei will stick with Android “until the last minute.” No plans for a Harmony-powered phone, but he added, “ You never know.”

— Roger Cheng (@RogerWCheng) August 21, 2019

The extension means that the Mate 30 Pro and, more than likely, the foldable Mate X will both feature Android at launch. Yang said that when it comes to phones running HarmonyOS, Huawei will wait until the last minute when it’s certain there’s no alternative before replacing Android.

Harmony will support apps built for HTML5, Linux, and Android, and it is set to launch on “smart screen products”—expected to be smart TVs—later this year before arriving on wearables and laptops across the next three years.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/81564-huawei-there-no-harmonyos-phones-year.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

HuaWei and Oppo have basically taken over the Asian market - and more importantly - the growing Southeast Asian in ways that Samsung and Apple can't.

Thing is, these people don't earn a lot of money annually so they aren't upgrading as much as they are buying low-price entry level phones. The average transaction on their phones is lower than $300 vs. "much more" for Apple or Samsung.

Superior specs and gimmicks on paper, but inferior battery quality and inferior build quality.

Long term, they'll be fine whether they run Android or not.

Especially when you consider that their markets will cater directly to them in their own language.

Within the next 5 years, Android and Playstore will probably be replaced by a Chinese clone.

Apple, Google and Samsung may plummet in sales over there.

 

[Uncle Al]

Android was great in its day but since being taken over by Google it has become nothing more than another marketing took for them to shove their products down your throat so a new "standard" would be welcome. Of course, what is really needed is an independent OS that refuses to be manipulated by the companies .... but I wouldn't advise holding your breath for that to come along in this century!

 

[DZillaXx]

Android was great in its day but since being taken over by Google it has become nothing more than another marketing took for them to shove their products down your throat so a new "standard" would be welcome. Of course, what is really needed is an independent OS that refuses to be manipulated by the companies .... but I wouldn't advise holding your breath for that to come along in this century!

Android as a phone OS has always been a Google Product.

Android is Open, nothing stops Huawei from using it. Only if they want google services do they need to go through Google. Otherwise they can easily do what Amazon has always done, use Android and build their own stack on top.

Problem with Android IMO is they took forever to get android running smooth. Just not as optimized as it should be. Even MS had cut down version of windows running on lesser hardware, and it was butter smooth. Now it seems hardware has made up for android short comings. But I would still use it over iOS anyday.

I use a Xiaomi Mi Mix 3. Great Phone. I use a custom launcher that makes it very stock android. Phone is super quick, takes great photos, and battery last forever. Android is a solid OS, but there is a lot that could be done to make it better. Like Built in voice mail, better messaging app, more advanced options for us power users, better syncing options for desktop (give me notification on my desktop while im at work, etc).

 

[netman]

Huawei is a fool to believe the 90-day reprieve from the ban is a done deal and US won't change its mind all of a sudden! They better work on HarmonyOS to get all the bugs out...

 

[toooooot]

Huawei is a fool to believe the 90-day reprieve from the ban is a done deal and US won't change its mind all of a sudden! They better work on HarmonyOS to get all the bugs out...

Much more is the importance of variety of apps available for the OS. I keep hearing of easy compatibility with Android apps with this OS. If so, good for them. If not, they will have to spill billions and billions and then after years of hard work, they might catch up with Apple and Google, but not before that.
You don't get all the apps popularity and respect in one day. After all, the best Chinese software products are mirrors of earlier developed western and European apps and OSs.
I wonder how well Chinese apps and OSs can be. I mean until now, they only developed products popular enough to have 99% usability in their country. But would they ever be able to provide products for entire world? And how that could fit in with their paranoid dictatorship.
Will see..