HUAWEI’s HarmonyOS 2.0 will get a launch event on June 2, according to a leak from Weibo.
As reported by Huawei Central, who spotted the leak, the event will allegedly be held at 8PM China time and will see the launch of not just the updated HarmonyOS but the MatePad Pro 2 and Watch 3 series, which will feature the OS.
The MatePad Pro 2 is said to have a Kirin 9000, 40W charging, a 120Hz refresh rate, and 12.2 and 12.6-inch display variants. Meanwhile, the Watch 3 series is said to include a Watch 3 and Watch 3 Pro model.
HarmonyOS was first launched in late 2019 for non-mobile devices, several months after HUAWEI was added to the US Entity List in May. That month, Reuters reported that Google had suspended business with HUAWEI, with the result being that future HUAWEI phones would be limited to the open source version of Android and not have access to various Google apps and services.
At its initial launch, HarmonyOS was described by HUAWEI as a “new microkernel-based, distributed OS” that was “completely different” from Android and iOS. It would first be used with “smart devices like smart watches, smart screens, in-vehicle systems, and smart speakers”.
The recently-launched Harmony Vision S Smart TVs make use of HarmonyOS 2. which released in beta in September 2020. December 2020 saw the beta being extended to smartphones. Huawei Central notes the Huawei Mate 40 series, Mate 30 series, P40 series, Mate X2, MatePad Pro, Nova 6 series, Nova 7 series, and Nova 8 series products as being among the phones that are part of the HarmonyOS 2.0 developer beta.
While HUAWEI describes HarmonyOS as a new OS, Ars Technica‘s Ron Amadeo, who tested the OS’ smartphone beta in February 2021, noted, “After hours of poking around on HarmonyOS, I couldn't point to a single substantive change compared to Android. Other than a few renamed items, nothing is different.”
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