Summary
- Honor, the former Huawei subsidiary, has announced its latest Android skin, MagicOS 8.0, featuring an on-board AI and an intent-based interface.
- The centerpiece of MagicOS 8.0 is MagicLM, Honor’s on-device large language model, created in collaboration with Qualcomm.
- MagicLM powers Magic Portal, which is a shortcut recommendation feature that allows users to switch and access services between apps and devices with a swipe, working with over 100 popular apps in China.
Honor may fly under the radar as a smartphone brand in the US, but the former Huawei subsidiary managed to grab the biggest smartphone market share in China by a small margin at the end of last year. It doesn’t look like the company is losing any of its ambitions in the process. Exactly one week before Samsung’s big and likely AI-focused Galaxy launch event, Honor announced MagicOS 8.0, the latest version of its Android skin, featuring an on-board AI and a rethought “intent-based” interface.
The centerpiece of MagicOS 8.0 is MagicLM, Honor’s proprietary on-device large language model (LLM). It was created in collaboration with Qualcomm and is optimized to run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The company says that MagicLM has 7 billion parameters, the underlying components that an LLM pulls from to provide data. For comparison, Google’s Pixel 8 Pro-exclusive and locally running Gemini Nano has 3.25 billion while OpenAI’s server-based GPT-3.5 comes with 175 billion.
MagicLM is supposed to power a range of new features, first and foremost an interface based on user intent that Honor calls IUI (intent-based UI). Honor is vague about what exactly this means, but it describes it as follows: “Based on the platform-level AI in MagicLive, the IUI on MagicOS 8.0 can interpret language, images, gestures and eye movements to understand a user’s intent and offer services proactively.” This is achieved by a new “Magic Portal,” which is a “shortcut recommendation feature that lets users seamlessly switch and access services between apps and devices with a simple swipe.” A video Honor shared with us below shows what this will look like in action.
Magic Portal works with over 100 popular apps in China, including big services like Baidu Map, Amap, Didi, Bilibili, Douyin, Youku, and Alipay. Honor is also collaborating with partners to integrate their own LLMs with Honor’s to create hybrid online and offline solutions.
Honor further says that “when it comes to AI, user privacy is HONOR’s utmost priority,” though the company hasn’t shared many details on how exactly it achieves that other than the fact that the model runs locally. Instead, Honor focuses on other privacy features in MagicOS 8.0, like the expansion of Parallel Spaces (its pendant to Samsung’s Secure Folder) to more devices and a “shake-to-block ads” feature.
Source: Honor
Some AI features mentioned here were already announced or teased by Honor during the Snapdragon Summit in October when it shared that the Honor Magic 6, its upcoming flagship phone, would support AI features powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Among them were a demo of Honor’s Yoyo assistant generating a slideshow video based on photos on the device and an eye-tracking feature that can be used to control aspects of the smartphone without touch. It’s possible that some of these features will remain exclusive to new devices.
MagicOS 8.0 is based on Android 14. There hasn’t been any word on when we can expect MagicOS 8.0 to land in other regions, though the company promises that it will have more details on this by late February or early March during MWC 2024. It’s not clear if the international version will offer all the same features as the Chinese release.
If the rumors are right, Samsung is planning to launch a similar avalanche of AI features with the Galaxy S24 next week on January 17. The company is expected to launch Samsung Gauss, its own generative AI model, locally powering features like live translation in calls, generative photo editing, AI wallpaper creation, and better zoom in night photography.
Source link
