Huawei launched HarmonyOS NEXT, its native mobile operating system 

On October 22, 2024, Huawei launched HarmonyOS NEXT, its new native mobile operating system with Huawei’s app ecosystem, new user interface, and better performance.

In 2019, the Chinese tech maker introduced HarmonyOS in the wake of US sanctions. The US banned the company from accessing Android and Google Play Services (GMS). This led to a sharp decline in Huawei’s smartphone sales in the global market.

In 2020, HarmonyOS entered mobile devices and adapted for millions of devices. Initially, the software’s interface and features were identical to its Android-based counterpart “EMUI”.

Some software industry observers criticized Huawei’s new mobile operating system and called it a “forked Android”. These allegations have a simple connection with Android Open Source library integration to HarmonyOS code.

The company separated both software ecosystems and kept HarmonyOS exclusive to the Chinese market where it still sells a majority of devices.

The initial HarmonyOS software has Android app support due to the lack of an app ecosystem. The company wanted to use its existing developer base for EMUI devices. In the past three years, it has turned this base into HarmonyOS and added millions of new developers.

This continued until last year when Huawei announced the development of a native HarmonyOS version. The company also confirmed that this new software will run only HarmonyOS apps.

This news has made many headlines across the internet due to the potential it could bring in the competition against iOS and Android, two of the most dominating mobile OS.

That brings us back to HarmonyOS, the company has been working on this OS for the past two years. Throughout this time, it has been cooperating with Chinese software industry leaders to create a whole environment of HarmonyOS NEXT apps.

Some of the notable names are Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com and more. As of October 2024, these firms have completed their HarmonyOS NEXT app and could launch their release version any time soon.

Aside from the ecosystem, this new HarmonyOS NEXT launched with performance upgrades compared to its predecessor. It has fluid animations and better-optimized visuals.

Furthermore, the software is labeled as HarmonyOS NEXT 5, which indicates that the software is moving further from HarmonyOS 4.