Huawei Reportedly Building its Own Mobile OS ‘Just in Case’ Android Doesn’t Work Out

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Published 23 Jun 2016

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Huawei P9 - back view, showing fingerprint sensor

Huawei has a long line of Android-based smartphones out there in the wild, but as a company that’s thinking about the future, it’s also thinking contingency plans.

According to unnamed sources speaking to The Information, Huawei has a team working on building its own mobile operating system, which would work just in case Huawei can’t use Android for some reason in the future. The plan is to make it so that the company isn’t wholly dependent on Android, and leaves options open if anything were to come up.

What might come up, according to the report, revolves around Huawei’s fear that Google might make sweeping changes to the way manufacturers use Android. Specifically, Huawei is considering a future where Google might make restrictions on what manufacturers can change about Android on their own devices, or a future where Google just flat-out stops supporting third-party manufacturers altogether.

It’s certainly an interesting report, and it’s certainly possible that Huawei is working on its own mobile OS to break away from some of that dependency it has on Android, but the reasons seem pretty doom-and-gloom. Then again, Huawei might know some things being worked on behind-the-scenes that everyone else doesn’t.

What do you think of the report?

[via The Information; Android Police]