Huawei Technologies may be close to succeeding where Microsoft, Samsung and Alibaba failed: fielding a formidable third mobile operating system to compete with Apple's iOS and the open-source Android with the debut of its highly anticipated home-grown mobile operating system HarmonyOS Next.
Starting from next Tuesday, users of the newer Huawei phone models, like theMate 60 series, the Mate X5 foldable smartphone and its 13.2 inch tablet MatePad Pro, will be able to try their hands at the all new HarmonyOS Next.
Huawei prides this new mobile operating system as a pure blood Harmony OS as it is entirely independently developed and not based on Android fork. The new operating system does not contain an Android Open Source Project core, and it runs on its Harmony OS microkernel. This means that Huawei's new phone OS is neither iOS nor Android - it's entirely another operating system that supports Huawei Mobile Serives, so Android APK and apps are entirely incompatible with the new OS.
Ahead of the launch, Huawei mobilised China's app developers to support the operating system in what it called an "oath-taking ceremony" last month with participants from prominent Chinese Big Tech firms like Baidu, JD.com, Meituan and Tencent Holdings all attending the meeting.
The Deputy chairman of Huawei, Eric Xu Zhijun said,
"Only with our own ecosystem can HarmonyOS truly be a mobile operating system."
Xu also invites all application owners, including governments, enterprises, institutions to develop the native HarmonyOS versions.
The HarmonyOS was first created in 2019 to be an Android alternative for the Chinese market, just months after the US government added the Shenzhen-based company to a trade blacklist that blocked it from buying US-originated technologies without Washington's approval.
The adoption of the mobile platform saw a spike last year following Huawei's return to the 5G handset segment with its Mate 60 series smartphones.
HarmonyOS accounts for 17% of China's smartphones market in the first three months of this year, which was a two-fold increase from the same period of time last year. This is also the first time the Huawei operating system has overtaken Apple's iOS to become the second biggest mobile operating system in mainland China.
While Android continues to dominate China's mobile market with a 68% share in the same peiod, iOS fell slightly behind with a 16% share.
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