Huawei HDC wrap: HarmonyOS 2.0, EMUI 11, HMS and more

Huawei held its annual Huawei Developer Conference in China from September 10-12 at its headquarters in Songshan Lake and it packed plenty of positivity for its community. The 'Together' theme was more than just a name, with the latest plans announced pointing to a more open expansion of the company's software platforms and a view to extend them far beyond its own smartphones.

"Huawei's breakthrough in ecosystem development is a result of the strong support from global developers and partners. Huawei will fully open core technologies as well as software and hardware capabilities to developers, collaborating with them to drive further innovation of an all-scenario smart ecosystem," said Richard Yu, Executive Director and CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group. "Stars shine through even the darkest night. Each of our developers is a star. Together they form a brilliant array. That will light the way."

New hardware

For the fans at home, nothing stands out more than new hardware at an event. Huawei delivered a series of new updates for the Huawei MateBook X and MateBook 14 laptops; Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro and Watch Fit wearables; and Huawei FreeBuds Pro and FreeLace Pro wireless earbuds.

The watches were a particular standout, with two different designs that cater for both those after a classic watch look or those after something better suited to fitness needs. Meanwhile the headphones see Huawei join the full wireless earbud market with the FreeBuds Pro, while the FreeLace Pro is a wrap around Bluetooth system that is again nicely suited to fitness endeavours.

HarmonyOS 2.0

The biggest news of the event was the opening up of Huawei's HarmonyOS platform. Along with a push out to more Huawei-made smartphones in 2021, the launch of 2.0 has also expanded access to allow third-party manufacturers to also adopt the system. This effectively adds a third option to the wider market of mobile operating systems and it isn't only targeting handsets.

"The milestone we're marking is that we're supporting Huawei devices from HarmonyOS 2.0, but at the same time Harmony OS 2.0 may also be available to other vendors' devices," said Wang Chenglu, President of Huawei's consumer business group.

Discussions of the use of the operating system extend to smart TVs, car infotainment systems, watches and more. In fact, a beta version of the new HarmonyOS for TVs and watches became available during the conference. Plus, HarmonyUS 2.0 features an adaptive UX framework that means it becomes easier for developers to create one app that will be suitable for performance across mobile, TV, car and tablet devices.

Huawei also announced that Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), already the third largest mobile platform in the world, has grown its pool of available apps by more than 60% since May, climbing to over 96,000 apps in the Huawei App Gallery. With 1.8 million developers signed up to its development platform it still seems like early days for the potential of what's yet to come – and 261 billion app downloads already show how big the reach of the platform has already become.

EMUI 11

The most eye-catching part of the show for everyday users will be the new features coming to EMUI 11. Smoother animations were on show and, while Huawei Share is already one of the big selling points of Huawei's device platform, even more emphasis on multi-device collaboration stood out at the event.

In one demo, a screen was dragged smoothly from a PC screen to a tablet, just like you would drag apps between monitors on a single computer. It's an impressive show of collaborative technology across platforms and alongside what we see with the HarmonyOS 2.0 push, it shows how Huawei wants to see its software work smoothly across many different platforms.

HMS

Beyond the HarmonyOS news, updates to the core developer tools was centre stage at HDC this year with Core 5.0 updates. This sees new software tools become available for developers across App Services, Graphics, Media, AI, Smart Device, and Security and Systems.

For everyday users, these updates don't mean much today, but as developers adopt the new features it will mean greatly enhanced experiences in the apps you use from the Huawei App Gallery.

Location Kit from HMS Core 5.0 can realize meter-level, sub-meter-level, and even centimeter-level positioning in different scenarios such as lane-level navigation, Indoor Positioning, even pinpointing the position and floor in multi-level buildings.

Huawei VR audio-visual platform provides VR visual and spatial sound effects, offering true-to-life immersion, as well as the gold standard for 3D sound to bring a subversive and innovative audio-visual experience to consumers.

In fact, with Huawei's reveal of a standardised language for Internet of Things devices, HiLink, it seems Huawei platforms are ready to spread to more devices than ever before.