News & Reviews:   Hongmeng OS

It's been more than a year now since we heard about HongMeng OS (or also known as HarmonyOS). Up until now, it was speculated to be the replacement for Huawei's smartphones lineup but nothing really happened and it was revealed to be made more for the company's ecosystem instead. But recently, Huawei Consumer Business Software President Wang Chengju revealed that HongMeng OS 2.0 is expected to be released in December 2020.

It was rumoured back in May that a new Huawei Mate Watch could launch this year. We've not heard much of it since then, but a new leak hints that Huawei's next smartwatch and smartband could be coming soon.

 Huawei’s HongMeng OS is expected to launch on the 9th of August at Huawei’s largest Developers Conference. It's been reported that the OS has been tested on the Huawei Mate 30 and has been tested out by a select few. 

While US President Donald Trump recently said that Huawei could continue buying products from US companies, Larry Kudlow, National Economic Council chairman said that these “are selling products that are widely available from other countries ... This is not a general amnesty ... The national security concerns will remain paramount.” This means that Huawei will likely remain on the US Entity List and this was further confirmed with his comment “All that is going to happen is Commerce will grant some additional licenses where there is a general availability”.

So here's a twist - Previously, it was reported that Huawei is going full force with their Hongmeng OS by applying for the trademark on various countries and it looked a bit legit. Now there's a new report about instead of using its own OS, the company may opt to use Aurora OS which is from Russia as another alternative.

According to the BBC, ARM Holdings, designers of nearly all the smartphone chipsets and processors in the world recently sent out a memo to stop "all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements” with Huawei due to the US blacklisting. While ARM is a UK-based company owned by Japan-based SoftBank, it purportedly uses “US origin technology” in their designs which are also used in Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin chipsets. While this means that we could see less Huawei Kirin chipsets in the future, it isn’t all as grim or “insurmountable” as some may believe.