After the recent controversies surrounding Huawei, the company made it clear that it would not bow down to any external pressure. The revocation of Android by Google for a while meant that Huawei and its customers were left in limbo, not really sure what the future would hold for them. While that situation has somewhat settled down and Huawei might get access to Android again, the company needed to make sure that it had some backup plans in case things went haywire again. So, it started designing its own operating system and after months of anticipation, we finally have some details on what it’s all about.
Read all about the Huawei ban right here!
Harmony, not Hongmeng
The new first party operating system from Huawei is called Harmony OS, not Hongmeng as some previous leaks had shown. Harmony is not really your typical traditional operating system but is instead much more ambitious and modular, much like Google’s Fuchsia OS. While Huawei has no plans to bring Harmony OS to its smartphones just yet, we might see it at some point in the future. For now, Harmony is being tested across other devices like Honor TV, smartwatches, and other smart devices.
Unlike Android, the Harmony OS does not use the traditional Linux Kernel but instead uses a microkernel. According to Huawei, this can really boost the flexibility that the OS offers while also adding better and more personalized security and lower latency/response times. What this means is that the OS can be much faster and efficient across many devices and is free from the limitations that a traditional operating system brings with it. Huawei also announced that the Harmony OS is going to be open-source, making tweaks and development for it much more straightforward and easier. What about current Android apps though? Well, while Harmony is not exactly compatible with Android apps right out of the box, transferring apps from Android to Harmony is “very easy” according to Huawei.
Who is Harmony OS for?
Harmony OS has been in development for a couple of years and will continue to evolve as time goes on. However, it is in no way going to take over the world in any capacity and remains as a plan B for the tech giant. If things between Huawei and the US don’t get better, the company might have to eventually shift its whole ecosystem to the Harmony OS and we could potentially see it on the Mate 30. For now, it remains an ambitious project which would hopefully power all kinds of products ranging from PCs to wearables in the future.
The prospect of having proper competition against giants like Apple and Google might seem far off but in reality, it is much closer than we think. Maybe Harmony will bring harmony between all of our devices to create that perfect seamless future that we all want.
You can read about Harmony OS in detail right here.