Huawei has unveiled its own operating system.
After the company was banned from using products and licensing Android from US companies such as Google, the company announced it would launch its own smartphone operating system as a way to combat any future trade wars or tariffs.
HarmonyOS was announced by the company over the weekend at the Huawei Developer Conference in Dongguan, with company CEO Richard Yu telling journalists that the operating system was a “distributed OS” allowing developers to develop their apps once, and have them deployed across a wide range of different devices.
With Android and iOS, developers are creating apps for just one platform – the iPhone or an Android phone or tablet.
HarmonyOS, on the other hand, allows a developer to build one app that will work across the companies’ other platforms, such as TVs, phones, tablets, smartwatches and more, although it’s unknown what those devices will be.
Huawei confirmed HarmonyOS would first be released on the Honor Smart Screen, a new smart TV that had received more than 100,000 pre-orders before it was announced.
The company added that, over the next two years, HarmonyOS would arrive on other devices, including smart cars and wearable devices such as smartwatches and trackers.
Huawei confirmed that HarmonyOS has a “microkernel architecture,” which will speed up performance on the operating system and make it less likely to suffer from hacks.
Are you excited to see a new operating system hit the market to compete with Android and iOS? Are there any features you’d like to see on the new operating system? Let us know your thoughts on Twitter using @AppleMagazine and check back soon for more news.
