Huawei moves away from Android

More than 4000 applications are now available for the HarmonyOS operating system, according to Huawei. What’s more, a new version of the system will be released soon, with plans to completely eliminate Android apps.

It was in 2019 that Huawei officially launched the HarmonyOS operating system, with version 2.0 released the following year. The current version is designed to be used on smartphones while being able to interact with open source Android libraries, including support for legacy applications. In practice, this means that you can use Android applications with the operating system.

The next version of the system will be called HarmonyOS NEXT and will focus entirely on apps developed for the operating system.

Huawei reveals that there are over 4000 native apps developed or in development for the HarmonyOS native app system. Earlier this year, the company announced that over 200 developers were working on apps for HarmonyOS, representing a 20-fold increase in the number of apps in the last four months. It also means that Huawei is working its way away from using Android apps in the system.

“The company has eliminated all of the Android code from HarmonyOS NEXT and is now focusing solely on HarmonyOS apps”, writes Huawei Central.

HarmonyOS is currently available as a test version, but is expected to be released as a consumer version later this year.