Huawei is finally letting third-party apps work on its wearables. One of the handicaps that smartwatches that do not use WearOS, watchOS, or Tizen have is that they cannot access third-party applications. The Chinese company has started to open up its operating system for wearables, LiteOS, this way third-party apps can be installed from AppGallery.
For the moment, the deployment seems to be limited to the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro and one application, Fitify. This app serves to offer exercise routines and currently has more than 10 million users. It is available on Google Play, but also on AppGallery.
Third-party apps can be installed on Huawei wearables
The idea of opening LiteOS to app developers makes a lot of sense, as it would allow Huawei to expand its connected ecosystem and give more options to users. At the moment, the only app available seems to be Fitify, but it is to be expected that little by little more apps will arrive on the platform.
The City team has had to adapt its application using Huawei Mobile Services using up to five integration kits. Fitify is operational in 170 countries, has been translated into 18 languages, and has accumulated more than 10 million users. It offers 900 different exercises and also provides access to weekly training plans and individual routines focused on certain parts of the body.
“By making Fitify our debut third-party app for our wearable products we are sending a message to the many other high-quality app developers,” said Derek Yu, one of Huawei Consumer Business Group’s senior managers in Europe.
The executive also claims that Huawei’s wearables division has experienced brutal growth in recent months. As he notes, they shipped 10.7 million wrist wearables globally in Q3 2020, a year-on-year growth of 88.1% and a market share of 19.5%.
For now, we only know that Fitify can be installed on the Huawei Watch GT 2 Pro, but we will have to wait to see if the Chinese company decides to expand this new strategy to all its wearables. In the same way, we will have to see if more developers are encouraged to adapt their applications for use on the company’s smartwatches.
