It is almost too difficult to resist the temptation of calling Huawei’s Harmony OS a patchy “plan B” for its smartphones since it has no business using the Android OS.
With the geopolitical complexities that stand as a disruption to Huawei’s ability to trade with the United States, there is a strong chance that the tech giants have to kiss google’s Android OS goodbye soon.
The Harmony OS is what I would love to call a great backup plan for when or if things go from bad to worse.
Except we are wrong to assume that Harmony OS is just a backup. The Chinese company dedicated a glamorous event to this brand-new operating system at the 2019 Huawei Developer Conference.
From the information gathered at this event, the world can stop guessing and finally know all the facts about the Huawei Harmony OS.
What is Harmony OS?
Huawei has tried to distill the essence of its Harmony OS in just one tagline: A micro-kernel-based, distributed OS for all scenarios. Sounds like a mouth full of chocolate, yeah?
We will talk more about the technical side in a bit, but the first part starts with the aspect that says “for all scenarios.”
Harmony OS isn’t explicitly designed to be an Android OS rival; it is a rival to every smart operating system you can imagine.
Huawei explained that its Harmony OS is the next step in establishing a fast connection between the end-user and the ever-changing digital space.
Huawei believes that the most significant changes are just close to us with the birth of 5G, artificial intelligence, the growing relevance of cloud technology, and the rapidly growing Internet of Things market.
This working together of all these makes up what Huawei has titled a seamless AI life, a convergence of the next-generation technology that it believes will cut across all of our smart devices both in the home and on the go for several years to come.
Huawei believes that the issue is that many of the smart technologies we use every day have refused to interact with each other, talk more, or work seamlessly together.
This challenge is not a new one in any way. Many operating systems are flawed because of manufacturer rivalries or because of hardware necessity, with even highly versatile open-source platforms such as Linux facing challenges because of their origin as a laptop/PC system.
This is also something we have seen for decades with Android. Google has continued to struggle to recapture the Android magic for its TV platforms and wearable devices.
Chromecast is Google’s best-selling physical product, built on cast instead of Android TV; this also tells a lot.
So Huawei has decided that instead of going through the stress of re-purposing an operating system or rebuilding the same applications and repeating the same things over and over, they would instead unleash a sparkling new operating system, and the Tech giant claims they have been working on the Harmony OS for close to a decade.
1 + 8 + N
Huawei has a Clear Vision for its harmony operating system ecosystem, and this vision begins with what the Tech giant calls the “1 + 8 + N” strategy. Within the “1 + 8 + N” setup, ” 1″ represents the device that should be your smartphone.
Let us take smartphones as the focus example here since they are our regular companions, and they do a great job at connecting us with other people whenever and wherever in the world we find ourselves.
It makes total sense for Huawei to use the devices as the starting point.
After the “1” comes the “8,” which represents other familiar devices such as our tablets, laptops, desktops, smartwatches, smart speakers, and lots of different tools that will run on the Harmony OS.
Finally, there is the “N,” which happens to be the more complicated or confusing part that features smart refrigerators, smart lighting, and many other devices that Huawei has decided to leave to third-party manufacturers in the meantime.
It is already a tricky situation trying to get all of these devices or products to function in synergy or play nicely with themselves, even if you decide to count only Huawei products.
Huawei laptops use Windows, smartphones use Android, and smartwatches operate on Lite OS.
This means that opening their doors to other larger devices like refrigerators and smart lighting, etc., is another journey into the world of incompatibility.
To clarify things, Huawei is bringing forth a simple solution: the need to make a secure operating system that will work correctly on all of its devices without stress.
However, the implementation of this solution is nothing close to being simple.
Designing a Smart OS
The Harmony OS is built on a single application framework, a single kennel, and it is to operate the same core services regardless of the hardware.
Huawei believes that by getting rid of redundant code and taking advantage of a more efficient model of scheduling that is based on a real-time “Deterministic Latency Engine,” which can relocate resources in real-time, its Harmony operating system represents a few steps above the monolithic and hybrid kennel architectures like Android and Linux respectively.
Huawei claims that it looked beyond isolated hardware features and individual devices and instead focused on a pool of abilities and traits that can be combined to create a virtualized hardware level.
This pool of resources cuts across broad characteristics like speakers, displays, cameras, and microphones, which are elements that repeat across different smart devices.
Huawei reports that its harmony OS will function at home on a laptop or a mobile phone that carries a 12GB of RAM, as it will be at home on a smart light bulb with ordinary kilobytes of memory.
There are numerous potential benefits of using the Harmony operating system.
The primary example presented by Huawei is the ability to switch between one device and another while using a particular app without experiencing any downtime.
An instance would be when you’re making a call on your phone and quickly switching it over to your vehicle dashboard while driving or switching it to your TV or tablet.
An additional benefit is that the Harmony operating system applications will never require to be written for only one platform because of Huawei’s ARK compiler that supports multiple languages (The languages listed by Huawei include C/C++, Java, JS, and Kotlin).
You can see that this will reduce the overall development time and offer excellent compatibility across various devices without any extra stress or workload.
This will be good news for app developers, and it will help them save more time. However, for Android applications, they cannot work on the Harmony OS.
It is, however, possible for the compiler to convert Android apps to Harmony OS without much stress.
All of those mentioned above, coupled with the advanced security that is enabled by the macro kennel environment across devices, build up an exciting picture for developers, end-users, and Huawei as a company that seeks to take charge of the future of connected technology.
Harmony OS is no doubt what the future needs when it comes to smart technology. However, Huawei still has a long way to go, as no operating system can function in the absence of devices.
This means that until devices that run on the Harmony OS are created, there is no way to enjoy this operating system’s endless possibilities.
So, What About Harmony OS Devices?
Huawei has so much confidence in the fact that it knows it is one of the few tech giants with the required infrastructure to actualize all of its ambitions, and that is one fact that is difficult to argue.
Huawei currently has a massive investment in Cloud technology, produces its own Kirin silicone, and now stands at the heart of 5G technology around the globe.
The company can also boast of a booming device business spanning wearables, smartphones, tablets, computers, and lots more.
And regardless of competition and technological advancements, Huawei has managed to stay relevant and maintain its spot as one of the best in the market.
Huawei is not scared of using its massive portfolio as a catapult for it to Mia operating system, as a matter of fact, the company has begun with its very first harmony operating system powered product, which is known as the Huawei vision Smart TV.
This consumer-ready product was released in China, and the television showcases a few of the artificial intelligence-driven smart harmony operating system promises.
The intelligent television doubles as a hiLink control system for more than 900 IoT devices, and it is also possible for you to easily broadcast and share content from your phone directly to this television.
At present, this is the only Harmony OS-driven product we have officially seen, but the company has begun to tease some of the products we will see someday.
Going by the roadmap seen at HDC, the rollout of harmony OS-powered devices will begin in the year 2020 with smart bands, smartwatches, personal computers, and vehicle head units.
By the year 2021, Huawei claims that it might expand Its new operating system to speakers and some other audio devices, and after the Year 2022, it should venture into the realm of VR glasses and more.
Of all the devices, smartwatches are specifically a compelling case, mainly because Huawei has ventured into WearOS for the Huawei Watch GT.
However, the good thing about the Harmony OS is that it is backward compatible, which means that existing Huawei wearables can transition into the Harmony OS in the future.
However, one strange thing about the Old Woman released by Huawei is the absence of smartphones, which means that they might consider sticking to the Android OS for their smartphones during the use of harmony OS for other devices.
This is just a mere suspicion from now, as the company might decide to release new smartphones that run on the Harmony as soon as possible.
Now, there is no clue as to what they have in mind when it comes to smartphones.
The Huawei Mate 30 series is considered a perfect line of smartphones.
Still, with the absence of a Google Play store on this Android-powered device, many customers find it challenging to access their favorite applications except through third-party application stores.
Huawei understands that the absence of this Google-powered product is a considerable loss.
For this reason, we suspect that in the future, the company might have to dump Android and embrace its own harmonious OS for good.
With the looming trade ban, if things go from bad to worse, Google may have had to stick to its Play Store, which has lost most of the application features.
This may mean a significant loss for the tech giant, but let us hope there is a way out.
Whether by choice or by force, Huawei’s new Operating System is in a collision with the Android operating system one way or the other.
That’s everything we know about Harmony OS so far. Do you think it’ll be a success? Let us know in the comments.
This is all we know about the Harmony operating system for now. We will share more information with you guys as soon as we have more information.
Till then, we look forward to receiving your comments.
