Huawei Hongmeng OS Won’t Replace Android Anytime Soon

Despite the talk about it, Huawei’s Hongmeng OS still won’t be able to replace Android anytime soon, the company admitted.

Huawei reportedly worked on getting its own mobile platform, Hongmeng OS or Ark OS, trademarked in a number of countries after U.S. President Donald Trump banned the Chinese company on U.S. shores. Hongmeng OS, Huawei’s CEO Ren Zhengfei boasted, is faster than both Google’s Android and Apple’s MacOS and is capable of powering a lot of devices not limited to smartphones.

After some time, however, President Trump softened his stance on Huawei and allowed U.S. tech firms to sell widely available technologies to the Chinese company. While the Chinese tech giant said it acknowledges the U.S. President’s decision, it cannot make any comment regarding whether it is going to continue with Hongmeng OS as reported, or go back to installing Android on its devices.

Now, weeks after President Trump’s decision, Huawei has come to a decision as well: it is going to stick with Android.

Android it is

Last month, some sources knowledgeable about the matter said “Huawei is not fully prepared to launch the OS” as the trade ban came suddenly. Although the company spent years observing Android and iOS to work on Hongmeng OS, it still isn’t ready for a release on mobiles. Why is that?

Some Huawei officials give the answer. First, according to Huawei’s senior vice president Catherine Chen, Hongmeng OS was designed primarily for “industrial use,” Android Police reported. This means the OS contains less code than what would normally be needed for a mobile device to work properly.

Next, according to a TechNode report from last week, one of Huawei’s rotating chairmen, Liang Hua, said the company “hasn’t decided yet if the Hongmeng OS can be developed as a smartphone operating system in the future.” Liang said Hongmeng OS is “primarily developed for IoT devices that will reduce latency,” not as a smartphone OS. Liang added that Android is still the Chinese company’s “first choice.”

Lastly, China’s Xinhua news agency also said it sees Huawei sticking with Android in the near future. These reports show a complete departure from earlier reports stating Hongmeng OS will become a complete replacement to Android, and will power smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs and cars.