Huawei revealed the second iteration of its HarmonyOS operating system and detailed plans to introduce it to a broader variety of devices , including smartphones. Market Company CEO Richard Yu revealed today at Huawei's developer conference in Shenzhen , China.
Huawei will make the beta version of the HarmonyOS 2.0 SDK available to developers today, but it will initially only support smartwatches, car headsets and TVs. The mobile version of the SDK would follow in December 2020 and Yu indicated that HarmonyOS phones could be launched next year.
Huawei is also releasing the OpenHarmony initiative, which enables users to draw on an open-source version of the OS — similar to what AOSP is for Ios. As of today, the project will only accommodate devices with 128 MB of RAM or lower, but will extend to 4 GB in April of next year, and the ram cap will be entirely eliminated by October 2021.
HarmonyOS is a strategically crucial project for Huawei, since it could act as a bulwark against sanctions that would discourage the Chinese giant from doing business with American companies. Huawei is reportedly forced to ship its Android-based phones without Google services, undermining its software platform and accessibility to consumers outside of China.
