Huawei unveils EMUI 11 and ambitious HMS Core 5.0 platform
During the opening of the conference for developers, in addition to the Harmony OS 2.0 operating system, Huawei also presented the EMUI 11 shell for smartphones. Recall: the Chinese company is under sanctions, so it cannot use Android in conjunction with Google Mobile Services (GMS) – it relies on Android in the AOSP edition as the basis of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS).
EMUI 11 is still based on Android 10 (there is no AOSP version of Android 11 yet), but it has received a number of improvements and new features. The company does not exclude the integration of EMUI into Harmony OS in the future, but for now (probably for the next few years) Android will remain the basis for Huawei smartphones.
Huawei has tried to rework the interface elements and animations with an eye to those areas of the screen that the user is looking at more often. Now the interface revolves around the central part of the display, which, according to the manufacturer, is much more convenient and intuitive for users.
Improved work in multi-window mode using a special panel (it’s a pity, you can’t save convenient application combinations – you have to create them manually each time). There are also pop-up windows of Smart Multi Window applications, which can be minimized for a while in the sidebar. Interestingly, on laptops with Windows 10, it will be possible to open applications from a smartphone, and simultaneously display up to three programs on a PC at once. And Huawei tablets can be used to expand the PC screen.
Enhanced security measures for software access to the camera, microphone, and so on, especially in the background. Improved photo gallery with automatic AI-based folder sorting. Added automatic subtitles for videos with machine translation (Russian is not supported). Notes have been improved – individual entries can be protected with a password or fingerprint. Improved Always On Screen mode with new animations.
Starting today, EMUI 11 as a beta version is available on 10 models of the company’s smartphones, including the P40 series, Mate 30, MatePad Pro. Honor 30 / V30 and Nova 7 devices with MagicUI shell will receive the same improvements in the near future. Upgrades to EMUI 11 are promised for most Huawei and Honor smartphones, but this will happen in stages.
But most importantly, Huawei is now actively developing Huawei Mobile Services to replace Google’s services. By introducing HMS Core 5.0 in June, the company expanded the platform’s capabilities from last year’s 14 HDC kits to 56 kits, and the number of APIs in the seven largest regions increased from 885 to 12,981.
For example, the CG set in the Graphics section has dramatically improved image quality, user experience, and rendering performance in games. The App Services mapping suite has improved the positioning accuracy required in many scenarios to meters and even centimeters and is used in many third-party applications.
Huawei is committed to fully realizing core software and hardware capabilities. To accelerate innovation in app development, the company opened up its key software services such as search, cards, payments, and advertising tools. Some hardware capabilities were also revealed: cameras with a high level of quality, tools for connecting and transferring data, security, and personal data protection functions. In general, the company seeks to empower developers to create the next generation of innovative applications in a variety of categories. Huawei is also striving to promote its own applications as an alternative to American ones: for example, its own browser to replace Chrome or music software to replace Spotify, and so on.
With the support of more than 1.8 million developers worldwide, HMS has become the world’s third-largest mobile app ecosystem within a year, according to the company. Huawei AppGallery (analogous to the Google Play app store) currently has more than 96 thousand applications using HMS and more than 490 million active users worldwide. In addition, from January to August of this year, the number of downloads of applications in the HMS ecosystem reached a record level of 261 billion.
