Huawei Mate 20
The next Apple 11 is said to have a triple-lens camera like the Huawei Mate 20. Pictured: Pedestrians walk past a poster advertising Huawei's Mate 20 smartphone in Beijing on December 28, 2018. - Chinese telecoms giant Huawei expects to see a 21 percent rise in revenue for 2018, its chairman said on December 27, despite a year of 'unfair treatment' which saw its products banned in several countries over security concerns. AFP/Getty Images/Wang Zhao

Huawei has announced and confirmed that their own homebrew smartphone operating system will be called the Harmony OS. This OS prepares the company to leave the Android platform as Google can’t work with the company anymore due to the US-China Trade war. However, when will this happen?

According to Huawei CEO Richard Yu, the company has launched the new Harmony OS in China. Previously, the OS has been known for its local Chinese name as the Hongmeng OS.

The Harmony OS is an open-source OS which allows it to be used on other devices than the company’s own devices. As the OS is still new, no company has yet to pick up the operating system

Huawei has previously revealed that it would want to keep using the Android OS as much as possible. However, the US-China trade war is now preventing them to work with Google, Android’s developers, which could prevent their devices from getting any new OS updates anytime soon. Potentially, Huawei would start relying on their Harmony OS soon.

Last May, the US government eased up on some of the strict trade bans between US and China for Google and Huawei. Apparently, Huawei and Google was granted 90 days to work together and the ban will also apply to them again. While it’s still possible for the two companies to work again, the US government has added new requirements which could not be healthy for any company’s bottomline for its added costs.

The days are almost up as the grant was given last May 21. The 90-day partnership would be over this coming August 19.

Once that date arrives, Huawei has yet to confirm if they’ll immediately switch to the new Harmony OS. The company expresses comfort in using the Android OS that the company has long been using since 2010. While the company is prepared to jump ship, the company has yet to fill its own app stores with useful apps as Apple and Android does with their own. The company still needs to compete with the other standing smartphone operating systems rather than just being a independent OS provider.

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