HONOR Magic, an AI concept smartphone developed by Huawei's 2012 Lab, was launched in December 2016 to explore the future of AI-driven intelligent services. Its innovative design and smart interactive experience continue to be influential, with many of its concepts now integrated into modern smartphones.
My team was responsible for developing the Magic Live system, the core AI learning engine of Magic, which learns user habits and scenarios to provide personalized services and suggestions. Magic's exploration has proven its foresight and validity, pointing the way forward for smartphone development.
Here are some intro videos made by fans:
This was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my career. Our team was full of creativity and passion, with an excellent atmosphere for learning and sharing. We encouraged each other's growth, broke free from conventional thinking, and focused on user experience. Ultimately, we created a unique experience distinct from Huawei's traditional products.
Of course, there are many regrets, such as the Honor Magic Live OS not being able to separate from the Huawei phone ecosystem, which hindered its further development. However, its advanced design concepts have gradually been adopted in Huawei's subsequent phone series, which can be seen as a compensation for the regrets.
2016 was a year of diverse innovation in the smartphone market, with various manufacturers releasing their exploratory features or products for the next generation of phones. These advancements primarily included improvements in camera technology, charging technology, interaction design, and screen technology.
In 2016, AI technology in the smartphone market mainly focused on voice assistants and intelligent camera optimization. Google and Magic began exploring AI's application in intelligent scenario services within systems, officially marking the beginning of the AI era in smartphones.
Both Magic and Google Assistant aim to enhance the intelligence of smartphones by analyzing vast amounts of information, learning user habits, and providing direct and effective services through decision systems.
Google Assistant offers a broader range of cross-platform intelligent services, primarily based on time or location information, providing services such as schedule reminders and restaurant recommendations.
In contrast, Magic delves deeper, focusing on intelligent scene recognition and user behavior prediction. It comprehensively analyzes personal preferences, time, location, and interaction content, and integrates service providers to offer users more personalized and precise services.
Magic Live attempts to make the operating system a service hub, rather than a subsidiary of numerous applications. By deeply analyzing user preferences, time, location, and interaction content, it collaborates with service providers such as Didi, Hanglv Zongheng, and Alipay to offer users precise decision support and personalized recommendations. The Magic system covers multiple intelligent scenarios including privacy, app recommendations, system-level intelligent search, travel, entertainment, office work, chatting, and shopping.
Security is equally important to Magic. It protects users' privacy and security through four aspects:
Magic Live provides users with life services that meet their immediate needs
To achieve this goal, we have integrated system-level life service modules and designed a complete service process based on user usage scenarios and service content:
Information input judgment, service recommendation, quick operation, adding to favorites, usage scenario judgment, and card-style service reminders.
This ensures the continuity and smoothness of the user experience.
We have creatively designed the Magic Pad screen, forming an information notification loop with Tips, Action Cards, and Lock Screen Cards. The service process is centralized on a single card, marking a pioneering step in AI intelligent services in smartphones in 2016.
In our visual design process, we focused on four core dimensions: texture, vitality, immersive experience, and high recognizability. These dimensions guided our comprehensive design of visual elements for the service modules.
Our color selection blends the popular trends of Spring 2017 with the common color impressions associated with each service. Taking into account the characteristics of Samsung OLED displays, we appropriately reduced the saturation and brightness of colors to ensure a comfortable visual effect on actual devices.
To enhance user experience, we adopted a light skeuomorphic design style. This style cleverly incorporates characteristic physical elements from various service areas, for example:
Through this design approach, we not only improved the aesthetic appeal of the interface but also enhanced users' intuitive understanding of each service function. Every visual element was meticulously designed to create a user interface that is both beautiful and practical, while maintaining the uniqueness and recognizability of each service module.
The service module follows design principles of consistency, content focus, and immersion, involving the design of apps, tips, action cards, pad cards, and lock screen cards for various services. Additionally, we explored innovative interactive and visual presentation methods for lock screen notifications.
