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HONOR has just announced a new version of its Android UI, MagicOS 8.0. The company did in China, but the company did share the info in English with us. So most of what we’ll say will likely apply to the global version of MagicOS 8.0 too.
MagicOS 8.0 comes with “fully integrated platform-level AI”
The company says that MagicOS 8.0 comes with “fully integrated platform-level AI and the industry’s first to feature a revolutionary intent-based user interface (IUI)”. HONOR says that MagicOS 8.0 delivers “comprehensive improvements” in four different areas. Those areas are: smart connectivity, performance, privacy and security, and visual aesthetics.
During this event, HONOR also introduced MagicLM. That is HONOR’s proprietary on-device large language model with seven billion parameters. It is working “within MagicOS” in order to improve the platform-level AI’s ability to understand your (user’s) intentions and thus provide the best experience possible.
George Zhao, the CEO of HONOR, said the following: “From the industry’s first AI smartphone supporting MagicLive to the official debut of platform-level AI with MagicOS 7.0, HONOR has innovated with ecosystem partners over the past few years. Now, MagicOS 8.0 and MagicLM represent a significant milestone in HONOR’s on-device AI endeavors, and are a significant step towards bringing next-generation human-device interaction and ecosystem to users”.
HONOR’s MagicOS 8.0 renders services according to user intentions
HONOR says that thanks to these changes, MagicOS 8.0 renders services according to user intentions, instead of action upon requests. The IUI on MagicOS 8.0 is supposed to be able to “interpret language, images, gestures and eye movements to understand a user’s intent and offer services proactively”.
Along with MagicOS 8.0, HONOR also introduced ‘Magic Portal’. That is an intent-based shortcut recommendation feature. It will allow users to “seamlessly switch and access services between apps and devices with a simple swipe”.
In China, Magic Portal will be debuting with support for over 100 popular apps across different categories. It remains to be seen what will that support look like globally.
HONOR also added that the newly-announced MagicLM has been tweaked in collaboration with Qualcomm, so that it runs smoothly on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which fuels the company’s new flagship smartphone, the HONOR Magic6 Pro.
HONOR’s MagicRing now offers 500% improved speed, and supports eight transmission channels
With MagicOS 8.0, MagicRing now supports connections from point-to-point networks to fully connected networks, with 25% better power efficiency and 500% improved speed, says HONOR. It also supports eight transmission channels.
HONOR obviously focused on talking about AI and under-the-hood improvements with MagicOS 8.0. We wonder if we’ll get any front-end features to play with. MagicOS 7 was not exactly the most feature-packed Android OS. Let’s hope HONOR worked on the front-end experience as well, perhaps even tweaked the UI a bit.