Huawei to beat out Apple by one day in announcing new smartphone technology

The Huawei Mate 50 series, the manufacturer's flagship line for 2022, will be introduced this coming Tuesday, September 6th, one day before Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 14 series. Huawei Consumer Business CEO, Yu Chengdong (aka Richard Yu) said in a video about the Mate 50 handsets that the company is going to release technology that "pierces the sky upwards."

Yu might be referring to some type of satellite connectivity for Huawei's upcoming flagship phones. At the end of last month, Beijing-based Pandaily reported that Huawei had been granted a patent for a filing titled "Satellite Communication Means and Devices." The patent explains how Huawei will use satellites to improve the performance of a handset's communications capabilities while reducing the consumption of energy.

The firm has filed other satellite-based patents related to smartphones. Even though all of this information points to satellite connectivity for the Mate 50 line, perhaps the most reliable evidence comes from TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. While Kuo is known for his accurate calls about the iPhone, he says that the Mate 50 will "lead the iPhone" in providing emergency short message services (SMS also known as text) via satellite communication run by Beidou System.

At the end of last month, Kuo said that Apple had finished testing satellite connectivity for the iPhone 14 line before mass production of the phones started. Kuo stated that "whether iPhone 14 will offer satellite communication service depends on whether Apple and operators can settle the business model." Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said last year that Apple would offer the satellite service to allow iPhone users in an area bereft of cellular service to send emergency texts (which would appear inside gray text bubbles on other iPhones).

Thanks to U.S. restrictions placed on Huawei (which have been documented here ad nauseam) the Chinese manufacturer is not really a threat to Apple in the marketplace like it was just a few years ago. Interestingly, it sounds like both Huawei and Apple have similar plans for how satellite connectivity would be used to send text messages via satellite when no cellular signals are available. The idea is for phone owners to report emergencies that they witness or are involved in.

Huawei is expected to introduce four Mate 50 models on Tuesday, September 6th: the Mate 50e (powered by the Snapdragon 778), the Mate 50, Mate 50 Pro, and Mate 50 RS (Porsche Design). The latter three models will have the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4G SoC under their hoods.

The new Mate 50 series will have HarmonyOS 3.0 pre-installed and there is speculation about an emergency battery mode that would allow a user to make phone calls and send text messages even after the phone's battery has died.

Returning to the idea of adding satellite connectivity to smartphones, the ultimate goal would be for satellite firms to provide connectivity to smartphone users allowing them to receive data and make phone calls even in the most desolate areas. It isn't clear how users would pay for such a service which is why Kuo brought up the "business model" as we mentioned earlier.

The Mate 50 line will also feature a variable aperture lens and Huawei, which no longer has its partnership with Leica, has named its in-house photography system XMAGE. Huawei previously released two flagship models every year with the photography-centered P-series released at the beginning of the year and the technologically advanced Mate 50 line offered at the end of the year. But the restrictions placed on the company, especially in regards to chips, have forced Huawei to launch just one flagship series a year as it alternates between the two models.

And now, handicapped and crippled as it is, Huawei is about to beat out Apple by one day with the announcement of satellite connectivity for its new flagship phones.