We all know the problems between the USA and Huawei by now. To give a brief summary; In May 2019, the USA banned Huawei from using American technology. This unfortunately meant that the brand could no longer use Android. For this reason, Huawei announced its own operating system, HarmonyOS, in August 2019. HarmonyOS was based on the open source version of the Android operating system and fully supported applications made for Android. But it looks like this will change soon. It has been reported that the new HarmonyOS version, called HarmonyOS Next, will not support applications made for Android.
Last August, Huawei held the Huawei Developers Conference 2023 and announced a new version of Harmony OS called HarmonyOS Next at the event. The developer preview of the next version of the operating system is planned to be released in the 1st quarter of 2024. This will be followed by a public launch of the operating system. According to the news of South China Morning Post and Pandaily, HarmonyOS Next will not support applications produced for Android because it does not use Android libraries.
Rumor has it that HarmonyOS Next will only support the ‘HAP’ installation package. It is also claimed that many companies in China are hiring developers to make native apps for HarmonyOS Next, which is another hint that the upcoming version of the operating system will not support apps made for Android.
This change will of course affect both companies and end users. If we look at it from the companies’ perspective, they will now need to spend money to develop applications for HarmonyOS Next. As for end users, they may not be able to find their favorite applications in Huawei AppGallery with the arrival of HarmonyOS Next, as many companies will still continue to develop applications for the platform.
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