China's Huawei Technologies announced the launch of its proprietary Harmony operating system for smartphones on Wednesday, as the embattled company looks to recover from U.S. sanctions that have hobbled its handset business.
Rather than being a like-for-like replacement, Huawei is billing HarmonyOS as an 'Internet-of-Things' platform, aimed at operating on and connecting other devices such as laptops, smartwatches, cars and appliances. But Wang said the company was looking beyond smartphones with HarmonyOS. He said the smartphone market had plateaued and that smartphones remain the dominant device in people's lives largely because most developers have few other platforms to develop for."The problem with existing operating systems is that devices can't be connected easily," with users often having to download separate apps to get things to connect, Wang said.