Huawei Announces Open-Source Android Replacement HarmonyOS

[Tsing]

Huawei has a lot less to fear in the event of a full-blown Android ban by Google and the U.S. government. The Chinese tech giant has announced its own operating system, HongmengOS, otherwise known as HarmonyOS in English territories.

The software will debut on "smart screen products" but work across a variety of other devices (e.g., smartphones, laptops, wearables) and provide a seamless experience. Like Android, it's open source, which means third parties could adopt and tweak it. Huawei claims HarmonyOS is faster than Google's software.

Yu reiterated that Huawei would prefer to use Android on its smartphones, but if it had to migrate to HarmonyOS, that would not be difficult. He said moving to the new OS would only take one or two days and it is “very convenient.”

 

[Strelok]

Faster access to your data for Xi maybe

 

[IceDigger]

Not surprising.

We do need more phone OS choices though.

I would pay a small fortune if someone brought back webOS or BB10 OS.

 

[kin]

Any idea if HarmonyOS is just a tweaked version of the AOSP for their phones? Or is it actually something different?

 

[Brian_B]

I would pay a small fortune if someone brought back webOS

It's possible. WebOS still exists on LG TVs.

 

[ThreeDee]

if only I could install Windows 10 on my phone ....

 

[Grimlakin]

if only I could install Windows 10 on my phone ....

That probably needs a /s flag for being sarcastic. Unless the news that there was a 'port' of 'windows' to phones to tie together your OS ecosystems is new to you. It failed to gain market and MS killed it.

 

[ThreeDee]

/s

 

[chockomonkey]

if only I could install Windows 10 on my phone ....

That's actually not a bad idea. Instead of their feeble attempts at selling windows phones, why not let people install Windows 10 on their phone for free?

 

[ThreeDee]

That's actually not a bad idea. Instead of their feeble attempts at selling windows phones, why not let people install Windows 10 on their phone for free?

windows runs on a slew of different hardware configurations .. why not a slew of different types of phones .. Microsoft would have a better chance at gaining phone market share that way (if that's a thing)

 

[Brian_B]

I don't think porting the OS, near any OS actually, is that hard to the phone - nearly all of them are ARM of some sort, and I wouldn't call it trivial, but most OSes out there have ARM varients that run.

The problem is supporting all the specialized hardware. The modem, the touchscreen, the screen resolution, the camera, the acclerometers, etc. Every phone seems to be just a bit unique, and that's where the real effort lay.