by N. Peter Kramer
China’s Huawei launched its first smartphone, Mate70, that runs entirely on its own operating system. The smartphone is set to become Huawei’s new flagship. That would be seen as average tech news, if it weren’t for the fact that the software running on the new phone is a scoop. The Mate70 will run on the HarmonyOS Next operating system, software that the Chinese developed entirely themselves. It is the final part of a departure from Googles Android ecosystem which Huawei phones have long relied on.
In 2019, Huawei became the focus of a trade conflict between the US and China The US imposed several sanctions on the Chinese company, including denying it access to Google Mobile Services. So Huawei could still use the Android operating system, which is an open source, but no longer use supporting services such as the Play Store app store or integration with services such as Google Maps or Gmail.
Huawei has survived in recent years by building its own software under the name HarmonyOS on the open source code of Android. The Next version that will run on Mate70 will completely ignore Android and will rely 100 per cent on its own strengths. Huawei hopes that its software can grow into a fully-fledged ecosystem of its own, alongside Android and the iOS software that runs on Apple devices. Whether it will succeed will depend on the willingness of app developers. A mobile ecosystem stands or falls with the range of apps that can be found there. Being present on HarmonyOS requires extra effort of developers, because existing apps have to be adapted to the completely new code.
