Huawei getting ready to ditch Android completely
With Huawei being on the US Entity List, the company’s newer phones are running a different mobile operating system in the form of HarmonyOS. The only problem is that HarmonyOS isn’t exactly free of Android as it still uses the AOSP codebase. But that will change as Huawei is gearing up to rid itself of all traces of Android soon.
According to a post on Weibo by Digital Chat Station, Huawei is getting ready to launch its next iteration of HarmonyOS called HarmonyOS NEXT this coming September. One of the main changes is that it will completely ditch the use of anything related to Android. This is because it will run on Huawei’s self-developed Hongmeng kernel.
Huawei doesn’t really have much of a choice here. The Entity List placed a lot of restrictions on the company. For example, the software released for Huawei’s newer phones are actually based on Android 12. This means that if Huawei really wants to develop its mobile phones, they will have to be self-reliant.
The initial rollout is expected to take place in China first before the rest of the world. As for apps, Huawei claims that there are over 4,000 apps that have been developed. Given how large China’s market is, there is a good chance Huawei’s HarmonyOS NEXT could succeed in ways that other platforms have failed.