ISSUE 63 • ANDROID ADVISOR 95FEATUREThe most likely scenario is that Huawei will
go it alone. We’ve already seen the strength of its
engineering with the Watch GT, which uses the
homegrown Lite OS rather than Wear OS. It’s quite
good, even without third-party apps.
Of course, any Huawei phone would need major
apps to succeed. If Lite OS is any indication, however,
Huawei could build an alternative operating system
integrated with its own services that doesn’t feel like a
cheap imitation. China-based WeChat already offers
a platform-within-a-platform that brings messaging,
video calls, games payments, and maps in a single
launcher-style app. Huawei could make something
similar for its phones, forgoing the traditional app-
based environment for something entirely new.
If Huawei were as small as Oppo or even Xiaomi,
another Android fork wouldn’t be nearly as big of a
deal. As Amazon has demonstrated with the Kindle
Fire tablets, building an Android fork devoid of
Google, and even carving out a niche with its own
app store, is entirely possible. A similar move by a
company as giant as Huawei, however, could shake
the smartphone world to its core.
Slaying the giant
Huawei already has millions of devoted fans all over
the world. If they suddenly realize that Google isn’t
essential or even central to the Android experience
on their phones, it could begin to chip away at the
company’s dominance in the mobile space. Yes,
Google controls all the cards, but Huawei is already
a leader in China, where it makes its own chips and