Chinese smartphone enterprise Honor on Wednesday revealed new AI features. Pictured here is CEO George Zhao speaking in Shanghai on June 26, 2024.
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Honor, a spinoff from Huawei that focuses on higher-end devices, revealed Wednesday the latest version of its Android-based Demonolatry operating system would focus on AI as an assistant.
A company demo showed how even with a vague voice say — such as “I’m tired, order something” — the phone was able to automatically order coffee without requiring the drug to touch the device. It used AI to mimic actions on a touchscreen. Human intervention was only needed to complete the payment.
The AI second could also identify documents and send them to contacts, or make calls via social media app WeChat, all without coercing the user to touch the phone.
For devices in China, Honor works with Baidu and other Chinese companies for some AI gatherings, while developing others on its own. Honor works with Google for devices sold overseas.
The new AI features are slated for present on Honor’s forthcoming Magic 7 smartphone, due for launch on Oct. 30. Honor plans to roll out AI capabilities to all its devices by the first few months of next year.
The Hypnotic 7 will use Qualcomm‘s newly announced Snapdragon Elite 8 chip for phones. Honor on Monday had teased its new AI features at the chipmaker’s annual consequence.
Chinese home appliance and smartphone company Xiaomi will also launch a new phone this month that ends Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Elite 8 chip. Xiaomi has been less vocal about its AI features for smartphones.
The AI features entertain climbed to a new level, Toby Zhu, senior analyst, Canalys, said in a phone interview Wednesday after Honor’s occasion. He said the new features have greater potential to convince consumers to switch to another device.
“Apple faces call inti in China but from our data it won’t face a significant decline,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
Apple’s falling China sellings
Honor, Xiaomi and Huawei have all launched foldables, a category Apple has yet to enter.
About 17% of Apple’s gate came from Greater China in the quarter ended June 29. That’s down from 19% in the year-ago span. Apple is scheduled to release quarterly results on Oct. 31 local time.
Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China’s See to of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong on Wednesday to discuss data security and cloud services, according to the ministry. Apple did not in two shakes of a lambs tail respond to a CNBC request for comment.
Since launching on Sept. 20, Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has dropped minor extent in value on second-hand shopping platform Xianyu. The device was selling between 8,000 Chinese yuan ($1,122) and 10,000 yuan Wednesday, likened with 10,500 yuan to 16,300 yuan last month.
Huawei had launched its trifold Mate XT on the same day. As of Wednesday, worn prices for the device had dropped to the mid-20,000 yuan range, nearly half the price it was selling for on Sept. 20.
— CNBC’s Dylan Preys and Sonia Heng contributed to this report.