Huawei has provided software developers with a preliminary beta version of the HarmonyOS NEXT operating system. Probably, the company wants to give developers of popular applications on the local market the opportunity to test the OS in advance and prepare the software client for the moment when the system is fully launched. It is important to note that at the moment the Chinese mobile operating system is available exclusively on the Mate 60, Mate 60 Pro and Mate X5 smartphones, although the list will certainly be expanded in the future.
It is also worth clarifying a key point – HarmonyOS NEXT, according to journalists from ITHome, does not support Android applications. The operating system runs exclusively on apps based on the Harmony kernel, while Android’s open source code is no longer used. Accordingly, Huawei is taking a huge step towards independence from Google and its products, but now it needs to provide the operating system with a sufficient list of software so that users can access basic services at release. Apparently, this is precisely why the company sends out the build to developers – although this requires first registering and getting approval.
Huawei plans to collect applications for participation in beta testing of HarmonyOS NEXT from January 18 to February 5, and testing is scheduled to begin in March of this year. This event will not give anything to ordinary users, but developers will have the opportunity to look at the operation of the operating system, debug the launch of their software, configure some additional functions, or simply optimize the code for new conditions. We can only hope that in the future, not only Chinese developers will have access to HarmonyOS NEXT.