Huawei is gearing up to fully detach from anything related to Android by the year 2025, following the release of HarmonyOS Next 5.0. The initial device paving the way will be the Huawei Mate 70 Series, recently introduced. Even though the Mate 70 currently runs on HarmonyOS 4.3, once it hits the market, according to Richard Yu, the head of Huawei’s consumer business, HarmonyOS Next 5.0 may take another 2-3 months to fine-tune the user experience. Subsequently, this operating system that separates itself from Android will be implemented across all devices in the Huawei ecosystem.
HarmonyOS is essentially a forked operating system from Android, and it supports two types of apps – Android APK apps and apps native to HarmonyOS (with a .app extension internally referred to as HarmonyOS Ability Package or HAP, using the ArkTS language, a superset of TypeScript). The change in HarmonyOS Next involves discontinuing support for APK files and only accommodating HAP apps.
TLDR: Huawei is set to distance itself from Android by 2025 with the release of HarmonyOS Next 5.0, starting with the Huawei Mate 70 Series. The new OS will exclusively support HarmonyOS apps, cutting off APK support.
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