About two weeks ago, Huawei announced its in-house operating system, HarmonyOS. The company said that this operating system (OS) is not just meant for smartphones as it will be used on other smart devices and even on vehicles.
With the unveiling of this new OS, the speculation was that the company was going to unveil smartphones powered by HarmonyOS as early as this year. Most people were expecting to see the OS on the company’s upcoming flagship, the Huawei Mate 30. Rumors were that the company would unveil a standard Mate 30 running Android and a special version running HarmonyOS. The one running the new OS was to be sold in China and the company was going to use that to determine if can compete on the same level as other flagship Android devices on the market including its own Mate 30 running Android.
For those, like me, who were eagerly waiting for a Mate 30 variant running HarmonyOS, there is no hope as the company has said that it has no plans of launching a smartphone with HarmonyOS in the coming months. This was revealed by the company’s senior VP, Vincent Yang at a media event in New York. He stated that there will be no HarmonyOS-powered smartphone this year.
He said that Huawei will be unveiling other products powered by the OS like televisions and smartwatches. We have already seen one TV powered by HarmonyOS launched by its sub-brand, Honor.
As to why the company is not releasing a smartphone running HarmonyOS just yet, Vincent Yang said that the company wants to “maintain one standard, one ecosystem”, and they do not see why they should have phones on different platforms.
HarmonyOS will be Huawei’s backup plan just in case the situation between the United States and China escalates further. For now, we should see it on other smart devices but not smartphones.