Huawei has announced its much-anticipated Android alternative called HarmonyOS. Purportedly the official name for the HongMeng OS, HarmonyOS is the “the first microkernel-based distributed OS for all scenarios,” according to Huawei consumer group CEO Richard Yu.
At the Huawei Developer Conference, Yu said that HarmonyOS supports multiple devices such as smartphones, computers, smart speakers, tablets, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, and even cars. Yu added that HarmonyOS is capable of supporting various RAM sizes from several kilobytes to gigabytes.
Said to be faster and safer than Android, HarmonyOS will be compatible with a wide range of applications, include those made for Linux, HTML5 and Android. Yu said that the ARK Compiler used for HarmonyOS app development will also support Java, JavaScript, Kotlin, C and C++.
For now, Huawei will continue to use Android but can move to HarmonyOS any time in the future.
“If we cannot use Android in the future, then we can immediately switch to HarmonyOS,” Yu told attendees, adding that migrating from Android to HarmonyOS is not that difficult.
HarmonyOS will see action tomorrow with the launch of the Honor Vision TV set in China. Reports also claim that the Huawei Mate 30 Lite will be the first smartphone to use HarmonyOS.
With the ongoing US-China trade dispute, Huawei’s development of its own mobile OS is a sign of willingness to reduce its reliance on US technology which might be cut off anytime. Let’s just wait and see if HarmonyOS becomes a viable alternative to Android.
