After several conflicting statements over the past few months, Huawei has finally unveiled its most anticipated in-house operating system called the Harmony OS for international markets and HongMeng OS for its home market, China.
This microkernel-based distributed OS was announced today at the Huawei annual developer’s conference where the consumer group CEO Richard Yu told attendees that this new platform will support smartphones, smart speakers, computers, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, cars, and tablets.
The operating system has been launched in the wake of the US trade ban against China where the US government put Huawei and more than 60 affiliates in an entity list, restricting US firms from conducting businesses with the Chinese giant. Even though President Donald Trump partially lifted the ban, the US commerce department is still banning Huawei.
Hence, the operating system is part of Huawei’s back up plan in case things go south, but for now, the company will go forward with using Android for its smartphones.
The operating system according to CEO Richard Yu is better than Android. Without providing any proofs he said:
HarmonyOS is more powerful and secure than Android. Can it be installed on smartphones? Of course.
The company CEO also said:
A modularized HarmonyOS can be nested to adapt flexibly to any device to create a seamless cross-device experience. Developed via the distributed capability kit, it builds the foundation of a shared developer ecosystem.
As per Huawei’s statement at the conference, the company is looking to launch the operating system with its smart screen products in the fourth quarter of this year. In an emailed press release, the company stated:
HarmonyOS 1.0 will be first adopted in its smart screen products, which are due to launch later this year. Over the next three years, HarmonyOS will be optimized and gradually adopted across a broader range of smart devices, including wearables, Huawei Vision, and head units for your car.
Harmony OS is an Open source platform that will support a range of apps, specifically noting that HTML5, Linux and Android apps will be compatible. Apart from this, the ARK Compiler used in HarmonyOS app development will also support Kotlin, Java, Javascript, C, and C++.
