On 22 October, Chinese tech giant Huawei finally announced the launch of the long-awaited “pure-blood” operating system: the 5.0 version of HarmonyOS, often dubbed HarmonyOS NEXT. “Pure-blood” means that the operating system was built from the ground up and not based on Android or Linux like previous versions of the OS. It may or may not be a Harry Potter reference.
At the product launch event, Huawei also announced several new products, from Nova 13 and Pura 70 phones and the MatePad tablet to watches and even cars. However, all eyes were on the homegrown operating system. Since its announcement in late 2023, the “pure-blood” operating system has been one of, if not the most anticipated product from Huawei. The 5.0 version of the OS will be 30% faster than HarmonyOS 4, extend battery life by 56 minutes and decrease memory use by 1.5 gigabytes. All Huawei devices can now share the same system, paving the way for the Internet of Things services that control various devices and appliances with the same system from Huawei.
The system has also exceeded expectations in its scale, with 99.99% of the apps now under development in HarmonyOS v5.0, covering 18 categories, including automotive, education, travel, business and shopping. Creating apps within the system can also save development time as many major apps are now also testing the NEXT-supported versions, such as WeChat, WPS and DingTalk. Celia, Huawei’s AI virtual assistant has also been updated in the latest version of HarmonyOS.
The official launch, along with other announcements at the event, such as the release of the 5.0 version of the regular HarmonyOS, quickly went viral. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, many hashtags made it to the Hot Search list on the platform. The topic “pure-blood HarmonyOS” (#纯血鸿蒙#) reached number 2 with 61.23 million views.
With supported apps forecasted to reach 100,000, the HarmonyOS looks to become the “third pole” in the iOS – Android race. As Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, unveiled that the HarmonyOS ecosystem has over 1 billion users and ranks second in the Chinese market, this launch may just bring forth the paradigm shift in the smartphone market and tech sector at large.
