Apart from an unsurprising new flagship smartphone duo powered by an upgraded in-house processor, Huawei is reportedly planning to unveil a slew of apps and services this fall that should allow the tech giant to reduce its reliance on Google… eventually. One of these homebrewed software products is called Map Kit, according to internal sources “familiar with the matter” quoted by China Daily. 

Said mapping capabilities, however, are not to be disregarded, as Huawei aims to leverage its extensive network of telecommunications equipment to rapidly improve the core of the Map Kit technology with positioning data harvested from over 160 countries and regions. In the long run, the plan is to offer real-time traffic information and develop a “highly sophisticated navigation system” capable of detecting when a car changes lanes, for instance. 

Interestingly, Huawei already has two big names in its corner supporting the Map Kit initiative. Specifically, Russia-based Google rival Yandex and Booking Holdings, the American company behind popular travel fare aggregators and travel fare metasearch engines Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, and Cheapflights.