Huawei has been working on an alternative to Android for a few years now, dubbed HarmonyOS. We’ve already seen a developer version hit China in recent months, but it looks like Huawei is ready to launch the new mobile platform.
The Chinese manufacturer took to its HarmonyOS Weibo account to post a video confirming a June 2 2021 launch date at 8 PM GMT+8 (8 AM ET). It’s unclear if this is a China-only launch or a global event.
Early impressions of the developer preview have painted a mixed picture of HarmonyOS thus far, with Ars Technica previously reporting that the preview was literally Android 10 with EMUI and a few other tweaks on top of it. So we hope that was simply a prelude to the real deal rather than being an old platform masquerading as a new one.
Nevertheless, Huawei has promised that HarmonyOS will offer more seamless cross-device capabilities (e.g. using a TV and webcam for a video lesson and a tablet for supplementary material), an adaptive UI, and faster cross-device data transfers.
We won’t have long to wait to see a fully baked version of HarmonyOS on smart devices then, but hopefully the platform comes to wider markets in no time flat as well.
