HUAWEI recently announced HarmonyOS Next with one key change that’s considered a pretty bold move for the company: it won’t support APK files, which are used to install native Android apps.
CEO Richard Yu announced that HarmonyOS Next is ready to be rolled out to end users, which has created confusion for HUAWEI owners around the world as they are worried about losing Android apps.
Now, a week after the announcement, HUAWEI has issued a clarification that only the phones and tablets sold in China will get the new HarmonyOS Next, while global devices will stay with EMUI — an OS that’s still based on the Android Open Source Project, but looks heavily like HarmonyOS and lacks Google Mobile Services and other apps.
- 7 best sources for APK downloads: Google Play Store alternatives
- How to retrieve deleted text messages on Android
That means that, since they are still running on EMUI, global HUAWEI phones and tablets can still run APKs.
HUAWEI has always assured the media and its users that they will continue to support mobile devices sold to the global market, with the help of a huge community of app developers who are hard at work in making sure that Android apps are present in third-party app stores so they can be easily downloaded on HUAWEI devices.
It’s also been confirmed that HarmonyOS Next won’t be rolled out to global devices until HUAWEI is “absolutely confident” that users are ready to let go of EMUI and ready to accept HUAWEI’s own operating system.
Via: GSMArena