Huawei has been working on an Android alternative since before the US Trade ban went into effect. Even after Huawei got a temporary reprieve, the Chinese tech giant continued developing its in-house operating system. The official name was yet to be announced and reports said it was going to be called HongMeng, Harmony, Ark among others.
We now know that Huawei’s operating system will be called. At their annual developer conference that began yesterday, Huawei has this morning made official that its operating system will be called Harmony OS.
HarmonyOS has just been announced at #HDC2019! How are we going to build an all-scenario smart ecosystem and experience? How will we overcome the challenges of future OS for connected things? Stayed tuned with us to find out. pic.twitter.com/x7ZbgcEy2d
— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) August 9, 2019
Reports had pointed out that the new operating system would be more than an Android alternative for Huawei as it would be used for other applications since it performed relatively faster compared to other operating systems.
Speaking during the launch, Huawei CEO of Consumer Business Group said that it was important to have an operating system with improved cross-platform capabilities and that supports different scenarios. This means that Harmony OS will definitely be put into use across different devices and platforms.
Harmony OS will also meet consumers demand for low latency and strong security.
Richard Yu also added that Harmony OS supports seamless collaboration across devices and this means developers will only Crete apps once to be flexibly deployed across multiple devices and not just smartphones but also other devices including smart screens, smartwatches, in-vehicle devices and smart speakers.
With Harmony OS, Huawei is working to establish an integrated and shared ecosystem across devices while also creating a secure and reliable runtime environment as it is a lightweight, compact but still packs powerful functionalities.
Harmony OS comes with four distinct features
Harmony OS uses its distributed architecture to offer a seamless experience across devices.
Harmony OS’s distributed architecture and virtual bus technology offer a shared communication platform, distributed task scheduling, distributed data management and virtual peripherals.
This makes it easier to develop distributed apps built on Harmony OS as they can be run on different devices and still offering a seamless and collaborative experience across scenarios
Faster Performance
Harmony OS uses s Deterministic Latency Engine and high-performance Inter-Process Communication(IPC) that sets tasks execution priorities and time limits for scheduling in advance. This means that resources will be served to tasks with higher priorities and this means opening or resuming to apps while multitasking will be much faster thanks to the reduced response latency and hence up to five times efficient performance.
Secure
Harmony OS uses formal verification in device Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) to improve security. TEE is a formal verification method that uses a mathematical approach to validate system correctness.
The OS uses microkernel designed to simplify kernel functions and implement as many system services in use mode outside the kernel.
Huawei says that since the microkernel uses much less code, the probability of an attack is greatly reduced.
Cross-platform
Harmony OS is powered by a multidevice IDE and the distributed architecture that allows for both drag-and-drop control and preview oriented Visual programming. Developer s can now effectively build apps that will run on different devices creating a tightly integrated ecosystem across all user devices.
Important to developers is that HuaweiARK compiler performs at par with Android’s. Developers productivity is sure going to increase with the ability to compile in multiple languages.
Harmony OS roadmap
The first devices to get Huawei’s new OS will be its smart screens that are launching later this year. HarmonyOS will continue to be improved in the next coming years to be used in other smart devices such as wearables, in-vehicle head units and Huawei technologies such as Huawei VISION.
It will be up to developers and apps to see if Harmony OS will succeed and so Huawei is open-sourcing the platform globally plus also create an open-source foundation and open source community to increase collaboration with developers.
Harmony OS will first be adopted for the Chinese market before rolling out globally.
It ‘s a huge thing that Huawei has announced its new OS to bring diversity to the tech ecosystem. The company says that it will work closely with other ecosystem partners by opening up and sharing its core capabilities in areas like AI, camera, and connectivity.
Summary
Harmony OS brings lots of benefits to consumers, developers and vendors. For consumers, they get a cohesive and powerful intelligent experience across multiple devices and platforms.
“We believe Harmony OS will revitalize the industry and enrich the ecosystem,”
~ Richard Yu.
For equipment vendors, Harmony OS will help them gain the advantage in the 5G, IoT and AI growing industry.
Developers get the chance to have their apps used by more people across multiple platforms and devices with less investment and still rapidly innovate services across all scenarios.
What they’re saying
Richard Yu: We believe HarmonyOS will revitalize the industry and enrich the ecosystem. Our goal is to bring people a truly engaging and diverse experience. We want to invite
developers from around the world to join us as we build out this new ecosystem. Together,
we will deliver an intelligent experience for consumers in all scenarios.
