14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year when the first reports of a possible Huawei ban in the United States made the rounds, officials of the Chinese tech giant said the company was fully prepared for such a scenario, claiming an Android replacement was already in the works.
Back in May, Huawei ended up being added to the blacklist, which essentially blocked it from doing any business with American companies and using their products, and these include the Android operating system.
At that time, it was speculated that Huawei accelerated the work on its own Android alternative, which was often referred to as HongMeng, with a release target for Chinese devices set for this fall. This would have helped Huawei reduce the impact of the US ban on its product portfolio, as an operating system to power its new devices was still available.
But as it turns out, Huawei wasn’t actually developing an Android replacement, and HongMeng, the platform that occasionally made the rounds as a rival to Google’s mobile OS, was in fact an IoT platform.
Just an IoT platform
Huawei chairman Liang Hua said at a press conference last week that the company is yet to make a decision on whether an Android alternative should be developed or not, suggesting that HongMeng, despite being an IoT project, can easily be promoted to a fully-featured mobile OS.
“The Hongmeng OS is primarily developed for IoT devices that will reduce latency… In terms of smartphones, we are still using the Android operating system and ecosystem as a ‘first choice.’ We haven’t decided yet if the Hongmeng OS can be developed as a smartphone operating system in the future,” he said as per the cited source.
The United States will begin granting temporary licenses for selling products to Huawei in a couple of weeks, according to an official close to the matter, so it remains to be seen if the Chinese tech giant wants to continue the push for an Android replacement or not.