Harmony OS — A Capable ‘Android Rival’?
By: Nikhil Vemu
Tags: Gadgets, Smartphones, Marketing, Cybersecurity, Technology

Harmony OS — A Capable ‘Android Rival’?

Firstly, Flashback.

On May 15, 2019, The former America’s President Donald Trump signed an executive order to ban Telecommunications equipment and services from foreign players perceiving as a threat to National security.

Adhering to the trade blacklist, Google too has blacklisted Huawei from some of its major updates. Now, Huawei will have access to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which is Open-Source and free to anyone. So Huawei wouldn’t have the popular Google apps like Play Store, Gmail and YouTube on its future phones. Even the essential security updates would be available to the company only when they’re made available in AOSP.

Many thought Huawei would do something to convince the US and Google and regain its access to Android updates. But the story wasn’t so. It was totally unexpected.

Developing and Unveiling Harmony:

Huawei started developing Harmony way back in 2012 to reduce its reliance on Android and to remain unstirred by a future ban, and was kept hush-hush. After it has got banned, it sped up the process of developing its new OS. Finally on 19th August 2019, Huawei unveiled Harmony in HDC (Huawei Developers Conference).

Features of Harmony:

Small and Efficient: The basic thing that makes Harmony stand out from the rest is that it doesn’t include Linux at its core. Huawei has developed a totally modern microkernel for Harmony. A microkernel is smaller in size than the other kernels because it only consists enough code that’s required to run the OS. So, it’s almost 0.001 of code that exists in the Linux kernel used in Google’s Android.

Versatility: Not only Mobile Phones are the ones that would use Harmony. It would also be implemented in Smart Watches, TVs, Cars, Routers, Speakers, Cameras, VR goggles etc… So it’s a Shared Ecosystem. And you can also seamlessly cast your video calls, videos or switch apps to your TV or watch immediately because it’s all Harmony, and it allows you to do so.

Theoretically faster than Android: Harmony uses distributed task scheduling and data management to improve its efficiency and performance. Huawei claims that it’s OS could exceed Android in terms of speed because Android suffers from the issues of unnecessary code, obsolete scheduling and memory fragmentation. Huawei’s microkernel deploys the new “Deterministic Latency Engine” that analyses load in real-time, and forecasts to utilise resources in a better way.

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Security: The new microkernel used by Huawei improves security. The design uses formal validation which apply data models to validate the software cycles and provides great real-time security. Huawei surprisingly announces that it won’t support root access on its devices. This would not allow the device to go away from Huawei’s tutelage.

Photo by Muhannad Ajjan on Unsplash

Apps: At Harmony’s launch in HDC 2019, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business said, “Migrating Android apps to Harmony is very easy and only requires one or two days’ work.” Also, if you create an app for Harmony, it works on all of its devices, because it’s a shared ecosystem. Creating Harmony was indeed a gargantuan task but later, it becomes so easy to work and interface on it.

Beauty: Harmony isn’t focused just on utility but on beauty too. It consists beautiful curvy windows, smooth animations and no buffers. Thanks to Kirin for that.

Devices on Harmony right now:

Huawei mentioned that Harmony OS would initially be deployed on devices targeting its home market i.e. China. Honor unveiled its Honor Vision series of smart TVs, which are the first devices to run Harmony. Now, few more devices are included. They are: Honor Vision, Honor Vision Pro, Huawei Vision (65, 75), Huawei Router AX3.

Future plans:

Photo by Matti Blume on BRNO Daily

As of now, there are 45,000 apps in the Harmony’s App Gallery and 390M active users. That’s very less when compared to Play store’s 2.87M apps and 2B users. Now, Huawei plans to raise the digits. Developers will be able to use Huawei’s own ARK compiler to compile code from a multitude of programming languages. It will be providing an IDE to support app development across various devices.

Huawei has announced that all its devices running on EMUI 11 will be able to upgrade to Harmony. From 2021, it plans to pre-install Harmony in all of its devices. As it’s one of the largest smartphone manufacturers, there’ll be many devices that run on Harmony.

Why is Harmony OS called Hongmeng OS in China?

Hongmeng doesn’t mean much to us as non-Chinese people. But it has attracted a lot of attention of the native Chinese speakers. Hongmeng means ‘Breaking free of the chaos and starting something new from scratch’. Applies here: Huawei broke out from its dependence on Android and started making its own Harmony.

Same with its processor name ‘Kirin’ which got its name after a Chinese mythical lucky monster called Qilin. Huawei’s server chip is called Kunpeng, taken from a giant bird that transforms from a fish, and Huawei’s servers are called Taishan, named after the sacred mountain Mt. Tai.

Conclusion:

Huawei is on its way to become a self-reliant gadget company like Apple. It’s worth appreciating Huawei for putting its own OS in the duopoly market that 99% dominated by Android and iOS. It is a toilsome task to convince the Tech giants like Facebook, Zoom, Dropbox and others to invite their apps to Huawei’s App Gallery and the company is doing nothing less. If Huawei brings the Harmony to its phones with the features it promised, it should be a tough competent to all the other players over there, without any doubt.