A rumour surfaced overnight suggesting one of Nokia's upcoming smartphones - the X60 - could launch running HarmonyOS, Huawei's home-made operating system. 

If true it would certainly fly in the face of Nokia's ongoing tone regarding its commitment to Android. 

During its recent 2021 product range launch Nokia was very clear that it was fully onboard with Android, to the point of commiting to regular security and software updates for 2-3 years. 

It's no surprise then that Nokia moved quickly to dispel the rumour. In a comment made to Chinese publication, The Paper, Nokia stated that "our commitment to providing the best Android experience remains firm."

We contacted Nokia, and the response - while a little vague - was the same: "We know that our customers love Android OS Nokia phones, and our commitment to provide the best Android experience remains unwavering."

And Nokia wasn't the only company involved to distance itself from these rumours. Huawei - in a comment to Chinese state media Global Times - said that the news is "false". 

HarmonyOS is Huawei's operating system designed to making working with different types of inter-connected products work more seamless. 

It only recently launched its first consumer products running the new operating system: the Huawei Watch 3 and the MatePad Pro tablets

It's a system not only developed to help different products - like smartwatches, smart home devices, cameras and headphones - talk to each other, but also do it without requiring lots of extra leg work. 

One example Huawei consistently uses is having a HarmonyOS compatible onboard camera on a cyclist wearing a HarmonyOS compatible smartwatch tracking a route, and being able to bring both sets of data into one interface.

In this instance, that would mean having video from the camera feed that also showed the cyclists speed, distance, heart rate and route in real-time tracked from the watch and smartphone. 

It is worth noting that HarmonyOS is open source, and so it could be these rumours started because Nokia was looking at ways of making its existing devices better compatible with that system as a whole. Rather than Nokia actually running HarmonyOS in full, like Huawei's phones would. 

That, however, is just speculation on our part. Neither company has given any indication yet that this is the case. Huawei declined to respond to our request comment, stating that they don't comment on rumours and speculation.