HarmonyOS
Here’s what a well known Chinese smartphone maker said about using Huawei HarmonyOS in its phones
The HarmonyOS or Hongmeng OS is Huawei’s biggest bet to dominate the technology era also known as the internet of everything. Therefore, this operating system not only covers smartphones but a set of different platforms and enables them to speak to each other through shared APIs.
In 2021, Huawei has planned to install HarmonyOS in 300 million smart devices, of which, 200 likely to be smartphones, and the rest will include tablets, wearables, IoT devices as well as devices coming from third-party manufacturers.
Huawei is currently testing HarmonyOS in smartphones under the Developer Beta program and in April, the company will officially launch this operating system in mobiles as well as start to upgrade its old models.
Previously, Wang Chenglu, President of Huawei’s Consumer Business Software Department, revealed that Huawei is ready to share HarmonyOS with other smartphone makers if they want to use it.
Regarding this matter, a Chinese media person asked ZTE, a Chinese smartphone maker of whether the company has plans to use Hongmeng operating system to surge smartphone sales in 2021.
In reply, the company said it has no plans to use the Hongmeng operating system.
Outside of its own domain, Huawei has partnered with many industry leaders for smart home appliances and smart car manufacturers. However, the Chinese tech giant is yet to find partners in the field of smartphones.
Why Huawei hasn’t found HarmonyOS clients for smartphones:
According to the industry observers, this new operating system has low memory support and the second one is the simplicity in modification.
Although HarmonyOS is open source, the platform is still in its early stage of development and according to the information, the HarmonyOS initially supports the devices with the following memory and platform support:
- From September 10, 2021, = Smart TVs, smartwatches, an in-car system of 128KB to 128MB
- From April, it’ll smartphones and other smart devices of 128MB to 4GB
- From October 2021, HarmonyOS will support high-end smartphones of over 4GB
Therefore, the analysts believe that the current use cases of the HarmonyOS are limited but we want to remind you that the question of other smartphone makers to use HarmonyOS doesn’t end now because HarmonyOS has a bar to achieve, and when it’s done smartphones with open source software will definitely look at it as the first preference.
Also, the scope of medication in the HarmonyOS software system is currently not wide as the Android Open Source Platform (AOSP) but the chances of HarmonyOS growing is much bigger in the future with the help of the open-source community.
Future opportunity:
This year, Huawei likely to mature the HarmonyOS for all use cases in smartphones and the company will get it released even on flagship devices. While 2022 or before, Huawei will promote this software technology all around the globe.
Huawei is rolling out a brand new software update for the latest Huawei P60 Pro flagship and it has some important optimizations for camera and satellite SMS features.
According to the information, the Huawei P60 series is the first to equip HarmonyOS 3.1 operating system. This release brings many new features that are built onboard. However, the new rollout addresses the optimizations with HarmonyOS version 3.1.0.132 and an OTA package size of 1.11 GB.
Users of this Huawei P60 Pro can download the update with new camera effects. It also enhances image quality for a better photo user experience. On the other hand, this firmware has new optimizations for two-way satellite SMS.
Moreover, Huawei P60 Pro can get performance improvements with new system stability optimizations. This software is expanding in batches for the Huawei P60 Pro and it’s only available in China.
Huawei P60 Pro:
Huawei P60 Pro equips a new ultra-lighting main camera system with variable aperture technology training from F/1.4 aperture to F/4.0 range. The flagship’s RYYB sensor boosts light intake. The large sensor allows you to take the right photographs in the darkest environments.
The phone also ramps up an ultra-lighting telephoto camera, which adapts the world’s biggest f/2.1 aperture to process 178% more light and 488% more brightness than iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Looking at the numbers, the Huawei P60 Pro equips a triple rear camera system including a 48 MP Ultra Lighting Camera (F1.4 – F4.0 aperture, OIS). Also, there’s a 13 MP Ultra-Wide Angle Camera (F2.2 aperture), and a 48 MP Ultra Lighting Telephoto Camera (F2.1 aperture, OIS).
Two way Satellite:
Huawei P60 Pro breaks the barrier with the first-ever two-way satellite SMS communication feature. This allows users to send and receive SMS over Beidou satellite without a mobile network.
It’s good to know that Huawei is seeding new software upgrades to the Huawei P60 series and improving the phone’s performance in different scenarios.
HarmonyOS 3.1 comes with various new features and Huawei has finally made some changes to the stock camera app, which, we’ll going to discuss in this article.
The first appearance of these changes could be found in the Huawei P60 series. However, the software will soon expand for more users and these phones may also get the same camera app.
As for your information, Huawei has highlighted two new camera app features with HarmonyOS 3.1. These are – the new telephoto round dial and the latest shortcut features below the shutter button.
Let’s start with the first, the new camera app improved the way we interact with the telephoto zoom. For example, you now have a bit clear user interface. The zoom labels for wide, 1x, and more have been separated without dots.
But a major change is found in the manual zoom bar, which now has a rotating dial. With this new addition, the camera will render a real-time rotating dial to match the zoom level on the screen.
For example, you can increase or decrease the zoom with a tap and hold and left and right actions. This will adjust the zoom according to the movement of the dial. There’s a red stoppage, which indicates the current zoom level similar to a DSLR.
Compared to this new telephoto range, the existing Huawei stock camera app uses a horizontal bar to change the zoom levels. However, the new way is easy as found by many users.
Under Shutter:
With HarmonyOS 3.1, Huawei is also improving your way to interact with the most common camera settings. These are now placed below the shutter button. The addition is completely new to the Huawei camera app and increases its reachability.
For example, the phone’s most common top menu options are by expanding the up icon below the shutter button. It includes AI mode, flash, select aspect ratio, move pictures, select a filter, and more. The feature also supports left and right action to show more on-screen options.
New camera app:
These are two major changes that the new stock Huawei camera app and there might be more simple tweaks waiting to explore. For global users, the new camera app could come with EMUI 13.1 and we’ll look forward to it.
HarmonyOS 3 is about to conclude the beta roadmap in China because Huawei has opened the very last phase of the entire schedule with the 24 oldest Huawei smartphones.
These phones belong to both budget and mid-range price segments, while some of these belong to Huawei’s former subsidiary – Honor. Despite the partition, Huawei keeps on sending this software update for Honor phones from 2020 or before.
It’s good that Huawei decided not to leave Honor phones in limbo, at least in China. Meanwhile, smartphone owners of Huawei Nova 6 SE and the entire Nova 5 series are happy about the recruitment. These phone users have been waiting for this announcement since last December.
However, it’s finally here, and below are the 24 oldest Huawei smartphones to participate in the HarmonyOS 3 closed beta recruitment.
- Huawei Nova 6 SE
- Huawei Nova 5
- Huawei Nova 5i Pro
- Huawei Nova 5z
- Huawei Nova 4
- Huawei Maimang 9 5G
- Huawei Enjoy Z 5G
- Huawei Enjoy 20 Pro 5G
- Huawei Enjoy 20 Plus 5G
- Huawei Enjoy 20 5G
- Huawei Nova 4e
- Huawei Nova 5i
- Huawei Enjoy 10 Plus
- Huawei Maimang 8
- Huawei Enjoy 9S
- Huawei Enjoy 10S
- Honor Play4
- Honor 20
- Honor 20 Pro
- Honor V20
- Honor V20 MOSCHINO Version
- Honor Magic 2
- Huawei MatePad 5G 10.4 inches
- Huawei MatePad 10.4 inches.
Details:
These are a lot of models and it’s praiseworthy that Huawei is taking care of these forgotten smartphones with a top-notch software upgrade. Coming back to the beta activity details, HarmonyOS 3 beta is opened with limited slots including 500 bookings for the long version and 1500 for no log version on each device/model.
The latest HarmonyOS 3 recruitment falls under the closed test environment, which means only a handful of smartphones will receive the Beta OTA package. However, a wider version of the beta will begin with the public version of the HarmonyOS 3 release.
Meanwhile, you should know that these phone users will get a first ride to the newest HarmonyOS 3 features before it is released as a stable version.
