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Huawei has emerged as one of the top ten mobile phone brands in the world in recent years. However, there have long been issues with Huawei’s EMUI operating system for international owners, which used Android but also Huawei’s own apps. Huawei’s HarmonyOS is the next big thing for their mobile phones, but could that mean the end of Android apps on their devices?
What is HarmonyOS?
HarmonyOS is a mobile phone operating system developed by Huawei for their smartphones, smartwatches, televisions, and tablets. We must go back to August 2019 to find the launch of HarmonyOS ,and there were rumours prior to its announcement that it was going to replace Android on all future Huawei devices. HarmonyOS was first used in Honor smart TVs in August 2019, and it was just under two years until HarmonyOS was featured on Huawei smartphones. In August 2023, Huawei launched the operating system on 34 existing Huawei smartphones and tablets, but this was a public beta build. So, users of Huawei devices could still get Android apps and use them on their Huawei mobile phone and tablet. However, that is not going to be the case with the next operating system, HarmonyOS NEXT.
How HarmonyOS Next Will Affect Gaming
For anyone who likes to play games from the Google Play Store using a Huawei smartphone, the introduction of HarmonyOS NEXT is bad news. This applies to any game available as an Android application, whether it be free games, paid games, or mobile casinos. Times Union says the top ten casino apps that pay real money and offer great bonuses are available for all Android devices, meaning anyone using a HarmonyOS NEXT device is going to miss out on the fun. One of the huge benefits of having an Android operating system is the massive choice of games available to play from the Google Play Store. Most games take just a matter of seconds to install and there is often good support available for the games. Now mobile gambling apps are legally available to download from the Play Store, the choice has become even better but anyone using a device using HarmonyOS NEXT is going to have to look elsewhere for games, and perhaps won’t have access to so many options.
HarmonyOS NEXT
HarmonyOS NEXT is a pure HarmonyOS operating system, so this version will not include Android libraries. That means anyone buying a new Huawei smartphone will have HarmonyOS NEXT but will not have access to any Android applications. Anyone buying a new Huawei smartphone will be able to use only native HarmonyOS apps. There is no Google Play Store support so anyone wanting to access the huge library of apps and games from Google Play will be disappointed. This may not be a big deal to customers in China but for international users, it could prove to be a problem. It is not even possible to sideload Android APKs on HarmonyOS NEXT, so what does that mean for those who like to use Android apps?
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