Huawei’s long-rumored Android alternative, Hongmeng, is finally official. At Huawei Developer Conference, the company’s Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu surprised the audience by unveiling “Harmony OS,” which he says is faster and safer than Android.
Huawei filed trademarks for Hongmeng in June, though it muddied the waters when an exec later said the OS wasn’t designed for smartphones. Earlier this week, however, it was reported that the company had been testing a smartphone running its in-house operating system, and that a reveal was on its way.
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
Huawei shows off what is now called HarmonyOS. The open-source platform bears several similarities to Google’s upcoming Fuchsia, in that both are microkernel-based and designed to work across a number of devices, including tablets, IoT devices, smartwatches, computers, smartphones, and more.
Huawei talked about some of Harmony’s features, claiming that its IPC performance was five times that of Fuchsia. It added that it uses a deterministic latency engine that provides “precise resource scheduling with real-time load analysis and forecasting and app characteristics matching.” There’s also a big focus on security, with the OS having a verified TEE (Trusted Execution Environment), keeping data secure across multiple smart devices.
Despite being a lightweight system, Huawei says Harmony OS will even offer some performance boosts. For one, it’ll feature a “Deterministic Latency Engine” that can better allocate system resources using real-time analysis and forecasting. Android, on the other hand, is stuck with the Linux kernel’s less-intelligent fair scheduling mechanism. Harmony OS also allows for very fast “Inter Process Communication” the link between its microkernel and external kernel services like file systems, networks, drivers, apps and more. Huawei claims that Harmony OS’ IPC performance is five times that of Google’s Fuchsia, and three times that of QNX.
According to Yu, Harmony OS has been in the works since 2017, and the version Huawei unveiled today will first target smart display products, such as the Huawei Vision due later this year. While this release still packs a Linux kernel and Huawei’s earlier Lite OS kernel alongside its own microkernel, version 2.0 due to arrive in 2020 will feature just a Harmony OS microkernel, thus making it a true Harmony OS. It’ll also support high-performance graphics then, to the point where the company hopes it will be powering “innovative PCs” along with wearables, in-car head units, speakers and VR glasses.
Yu wasn’t afraid to admit that there may come a time when his company can no longer support the Android ecosystem. Regardless, developers will be able to port their Android apps over to Harmony OS using Huawei’s ARK compiler.
Huawei still has a trust issue in the West. Despite strong financial performance recently, the company is cautious of its future due to continued pressure from the US government and its allies. In a way, Huawei is facing a tougher challenge than previous failed mobile OS attempts, and it may have to do more than building its own ecosystem.
