Luyu Interviews HarmonyOS Developers: Young People Who Put Their Interests into the System
When technology fades away, let every individual be seen.
Written by Yang Liu
Image source: HarmonyOS
A sense of being cherished drives countless young creators to this new land.
Some people break down their day into to - do lists on the screen before getting out of bed. Some tune the world to the podcast channel during their commute. Others record the sunrise and sunset, the number of cups of coffee they drink, and even the number of bowel movements every day. These seemingly scattered and private moments piece together a highly personalized cyber - daily life.
As digital life is continuously segmented, new needs naturally emerge. A niche interest or an overlooked usage scenario may give rise to new application forms and even trigger a product storm.
In recent years, such stories have begun to appear frequently in the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
More and more young people seizing the opportunity are constantly creating here - podcast creation, visual expression, travel planning, life recording... As an operating system for multi - terminal and full - scenario, HarmonyOS is becoming a vast ocean that developers are flocking to.
Recently, Chen Luyu, as a HarmonyOS experience officer, had vivid conversations with several young developers. Their stories revealed a long - lost atmosphere - everyone's needs are taken care of, and everyone's creations are cherished.
It is these countless specific "people" that illuminate the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
A ten - thousand - word letter
Made them decide it "had to be done"
The connection between Xiaozhouyu and HarmonyOS stems from the most sincere appeal of a user.
At the beginning of the year, the Xiaozhouyu team received a "ten - thousand - word essay". A pregnant user recalled the important stages of her life in the letter - taking the postgraduate entrance examination, starting work, getting married, and having a baby, and Xiaozhouyu was almost involved throughout.
At the end of the letter, she left a sentence: "I'm using a HarmonyOS phone now, but I really can't live without Xiaozhouyu."
This sentence deeply touched Li Huiyang, the co - founder of Xiaozhouyu. After sharing the letter with the team, he set a "military order" for himself: this thing had to be done.
"A choice from the heart has its own power." In the first week after its launch on HarmonyOS, Xiaozhouyu experienced rapid growth. The number of new users almost doubled every day, and it still maintained a pretty good growth rate after one or two months. This positive feedback means far more to the team than just the data itself.
It makes everyone more firmly believe that this is not a passive adaptation but a path worthy of long - term investment.
In the HarmonyOS version, Xiaozhouyu accesses the unique "play control center" function - after users exit the application, the play control card remains on the desktop, allowing them to play or pause at any time without entering the application again.
Another frequently used function is "Tap to Share". By gently tapping the phone, users can share the podcast they are listening to with several friends around them at the same time.
As of now, more than 60 third - party applications have accessed the HarmonyOS "Tap to Share" function, which can share itineraries, music, videos, and even form teams for games.
In the product field, the key experience that makes users think "this is it" in their hearts is called the "sweet spot". In HarmonyOS, more and more applications are repeatedly polishing their own sweet spots with users through high - density real feedback. "In the HarmonyOS ecosystem, the first batch of users are the first batch of product consultants." Li Huiyang summarized.
A global decision:
Regard HarmonyOS as a strategic - level platform
In addition to domestic applications, overseas applications also view HarmonyOS as a "battlefield" to compete for.
The globally popular visual creation platform Canva launched on the HarmonyOS system not only because the HarmonyOS ecosystem has many devices, fast growth, and huge market opportunities, but also because it is rooted in the Chinese market, which enables Canva to better integrate into the local market.
Based on the full - scenario and AI capabilities of the HarmonyOS system, the innovation boundaries of Canva have been expanded - a future creation picture of seamless full - scenario continuation, AI - powered, and uninterrupted inspiration is slowly unfolding.
As a pioneer enterprise on the global unicorn list for many consecutive years, Canva values the global prospects of the HarmonyOS ecosystem even more. "When HarmonyOS enters a broader market in the future, Canva can also benefit globally." Wang Kexin, the general manager of Canva in China, said.
During the cooperation process, the Canva team raised many underlying and detailed technical questions. The HarmonyOS team responded quickly and disassembled the problems clearly. Finally, they completed the launch in only three months.
Wang Kexin described this cooperation as "reassuring": "It doesn't feel like a relationship between a client and a contractor. It's more like comrades - in - arms working together to solve problems for the same goal."
From law to code
A "wild" developer earns 70,000 yuan a month
Li Shangru's transformation story sounds more like a "rebellion".
He majored in law at university but was addicted to programming. After graduation, while his classmates entered law firms, he chose to start his "wild" development path with a single person and a computer.
The turning point came after he discovered HarmonyOS.
As a brand - new system, HarmonyOS is not only easier to develop but also opens up a new market with broad growth space.
Based on this, Li Shangru went all - in on HarmonyOS. Starting from his hobbies, he developed "Daily Coffee" - which records coffee - drinking situations, estimates caffeine content, and helps users find a balance between staying awake and insomnia. He also developed the "Sunrise and Sunset Time" meta - service to help photography enthusiasts determine the best shooting time... These niche and somewhat "strange" applications found their audience on HarmonyOS.
As of now, Li Shangru has launched nearly 20 such niche applications on HarmonyOS. After fully devoting himself to HarmonyOS development, his monthly income has stabilized at 60,000 - 70,000 yuan.
"The most romantic thing for a product is that it is truly seen." Li Shangru sighed.
A recommendation that makes you "seen"
The breakout moment of niche applications
The team of the travel planning application "Circular Travel Trail" first strongly felt the equal treatment of small and beautiful applications by HarmonyOS at the Huawei Developer Conference in June this year. Ling Qi described it as "a sense of being cherished."
This "cherishing" is reflected in every development detail.
The Circular Travel Trail team originally planned to invest a large amount of manpower to build their own map capabilities. Reminded by HarmonyOS experts, they found that the built - in MapKit of HarmonyOS could be used directly. It not only supports overseas scenarios but also can be called for free. The originally planned cost and manpower instantly shrank. In HarmonyOS, a large amount of infrastructure has been pre - built by the system. Sometimes "a developer can mobilize the power of an entire system alone."
This "cherishing" can also bring real traffic.
In August this year, to better recommend Circular Travel Trail to more users, AppGallery (HarmonyOS App Market) launched a special page called "How to Explore the Western Xia Imperial Tombs". It invited travel bloggers to explain the routes in detail and taught users how to import the itinerary into Circular Travel Trail with one click to generate a complete plan.
On that day, the user curve of Circular Travel Trail increased more than ten times. "This is very precious for our small and beautiful application," Ling Qi admitted.
In HarmonyOS, the download volume and ranking of applications are not the only basis for recommendation. AppGallery also recommends niche and high - quality applications and carefully introduces their design concepts and usage scenarios to users.
Circular Travel Trail also accesses the "Tap to Share" function. With a gentle tap, users can share the itinerary and even plan collaboratively with multiple people. The "Tap to Share" function works wonders here: two friends planning to travel together can share the itinerary instantly and collaborate on the plan in real - time by gently tapping their phones.
This "sense of being cherished" is the most unique charm of the HarmonyOS ecosystem.
