Huawei unveiled EMUI 11 as the latest iteration of the company's custom ROM, based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), at its annual developer conference on Thursday. The new EMUI version is touted to be an outcome of a lot of research with smartphone users. Due to the US trade ban, EMUI 11 lacks Google Mobile Services that offer Google Play and other apps of the search giant. Huawei has, however, provided Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) to fill the gap to some extent. The Chinese company claims that EMUI 11 brings smoother animation effects over EMUI 10. The new version of EMUI also uses the core structure of Huawei's HarmonyOS that would help the company eventually move from the Android to its proprietary offering that is made out of scratch.
Here are the top 7 things about the Huawei EMUI 11
One of the notable features of EMUI 11 is Multi-Screen Collaboration. This new feature lets you access multiple apps simultaneously. Instead of splitting the screen of your smartphone in two parts that is commonly available on many custom Android skins nowadays, Multi-Screen Collaboration brings app screens to your laptop for easy access. The new feature also supports drag-across-screen to let you move your tasks from one device to another. It also brings keyboard and mouse sharing on smartphones. You can also use the Multi-Screen Collaboration to share your app data between multiple devices. This sounds similar to how Apple devices support Handoff.
For a smarter Internet of Things (IoT) experience, EMUI 11 includes MeeTime that establishes a connection with HarmonyOS-based connected devices and allows them to communicate with each other. The feature also supports real-time screen sharing between two EMUI 11 devices.
EMUI 11 also brings an AI Subtitles feature that is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and offers real-time translations from English, Japanese, and Korean into Chinese. Further, there is a platform-wide translation support that enables text- and image-based translations.
Huawei has also developed its Location Kit and mobile-first search engine service. The latter is particularly aimed to cover more than 170 countries and regions in over 50 languages and over 20 vertical sectors, including local, shopping, news, apps, travel, and knowledge.
Additionally, Huawei has also brought a WisePlay DRM as its native digital rights management system for over-the-top (OTT) apps.
EMUI 11 is a repackaging of Android 10, and there are no details whether Huawei would be able to upgrade the experience to Android 11. Also, the company hasn't yet detailed the key features of the new platform as it's planning to eventually move its smartphone users to HarmonyOS. The company at the conference announced HarmonyOS 2.0 as the next version of its operating system that would emerge as an answer to Google's Android platform over time.
Having said that, a beta version of EMUI 11 will reach Huawei P40 and Huawei Mate 30 in the near future, as noted by 9to5Google. There is, however, no word on when the latest EMUI would reach its public release stage.
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