During today’s Huawei Developer Conference 2020 (Together), Huawei announced major upcoming updates for HarmonyOS 2.0, EMUI 11, HMS (Huawei Mobile Services), HUAWEI HiLink, and HUAWEI Research. These improvements will empower global developers and ecosystem partners to provide enhanced and innovative user experiences for users. At the event, Huawei also unveiled six new products that will contribute to the company’s all-scenario experience – HUAWEI MateBook X, HUAWEI MateBook 14, HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 Pro, HUAWEI WATCH FIT, HUAWEI FreeBuds Pro, and HUAWEI FreeLace Pro. 

During the event, Huawei brought together developers from around the world through various exciting activities, including Lakeside Talks, Tech. Sessions, Tech. Hour, Codelabs and more. The itinerary provided opportunities for developers to network, collaborate, and explore ways to bring smart all-scenario experiences to every user.

“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. ”

HarmonyOS 2.0: Officially and Completely Open Source 

Huawei announced its all-scenario experience operating system, HarmonyOS, back in 2019. Since then, a robust line-up of devices has been developed for the system, facilitating quick device discovery, instant connection, hardware collaboration, and resource sharing between multiple smart devices. HarmonyOS 2.0 brings a comprehensive upgrade to its existing distributed capabilities, including software bus, data management, and security. Huawei also introduced an adaptive UX framework that allows developers to quickly reach tens of millions of new devices and users. 

With the latest update, HarmonyOS will officially be open-source and developers will be able to gain access to emulators, SDK packages, and IDE tools. The open source project, which is donated to to OpenAtom Foundation, will be launched in stages with a mobile HarmonyOS beta release planned firstly for Chinese developers at the end of 2020. Richard Yu announced the roadmap for HarmonyOS in his keynote speech. “Starting on 10 September, HarmonyOS is open to 128KB-128MB IoT devices, such as smart TVs, wearables, cars and more. In April 2021, we will open it to 128MB-4GB devices and in October 2021, HarmonyOS will be opened for devices above 4GB,” he said.

Based on the distribution technology in HarmonyOS, EMUI 11 enables interaction beyond smartphones. Instead, it allows devices to interact with HarmonyOS based IoT devices, bringing a unique all-scenario experience to users, including using the camera of a bigger-screen device for video calling. The process is powered by the touchless connection between smartphone and HarmonyOS based smartphone home devices, enabling screen projection and more. EMUI 11 can be upgraded to HarmonyOS in the future.

Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) Ecosystem: Breaking Ground as The World’s Third Largest Mobile App Ecosystem

With the support of more 1.8 million registered developers worldwide, AppGallery and the HMS ecosystem has continued to show progress this year. AppGallery currently has over 96,000 apps integrated with HMS Core and more than 490 million global active users. In addition, it also achieved a record 261 billion app downloads and distributions between January and August 2020. 

In a single year, HMS Core 5.0’s open capabilities have increased from 14 Kits to 56 Kits, while the number of APIs has jumped from 885 to 12,981 covering seven major areas, helping developers achieve innovation and simplify the development process.

Huawei is committed to fully opening its core software and hardware capabilities. It has opened up core software services, such as browsing, search, map, payment, advertising kits, to accelerate innovation in app development. Huawei has also open up hardware capabilities such as its world-class camera capabilities, AR map capabilities, communication and transmission tools, as well as its leading privacy and security protection capabilities. Through these, Huawei seeks to empower developers to create a new generation of well-loved innovative apps across different categories. Huawei also has extensive support to assist developers explore business opportunities in China and other global markets, by providing relevant consulting service, localization and integration, marketing and campaign services.

Going forward, Huawei continues to expand developer services. Huawei is building three global ecosystem cooperation labs in Russia, Poland, and Germany to serve global developers and provide enablement, testing, and certification services. Five global developer service centres will also be established in Romania, Malaysia, Egypt, Mexico, and Russia, providing local services and platforms to help developers better grow and innovate.

HUAWEI HiLink: Enabling Billions of IoT Devices to Connect, Manage and Exchange

As the standardised language of IoT Devices, HiLink breaks down barriers between IoT devices from different brands and manufacturers, providing a unified platform where devices can connect easily, and interact seamlessly. This year, upgrades to HUAWEI HiLink will be made in five key areas: connection, interaction, operation, solution provider, and authentication. The goal is to make billions of IoT devices connect easily, more convenient to manage and control, and interact seamlessly to enable an all-scenario hardware ecosystem. At present, there are 50 million active users contributing more than 1 billion all-scenario device interaction requests every day, with a cumulative 400 million downloads of the Smart Life App 

HUAWEI Research: The innovative research platform

HUAWEI Research, which focuses on front-end research, opens two key platform capabilities HUAWEI Research Kit and HUAWEI Research Cloud. These capabilities facilitate efficient innovative research processes, accelerate technological breakthroughs, incubate apps innovations as well as quickly achieve result transformation. As a result, scientific research institutions, innovation institutions, industry organizations, medical institutions and other industry partners are empowered, allowing industries from all sectors to prosper. 

Huawei will continue to drive its software and hardware ecosystem moving forward. It is committed to opening up core technologies and capabilities further and empowering global developers and partners to create new possibilities together.