Huawei kicked off its annual developer conference today, and it’s just announced HarmonyOS.
The new, open-source platform is ostensibly the final name for its Hongmeng OS.
HarmonyOS is “the first microkernel-based distributed OS for all scenarios,” consumer group CEO Richard Yu told attendees at the Huawei Developer Conference.
The new platform supports smartphones, smart speakers, computers, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, cars, and tablets.
In fact, Yu says the platform supports RAM sizes ranging from kilobytes to gigabytes.
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Huawei on Friday unveiled its long-awaited self-developed operating system HarmonyOS on its smart television product, but it may not be an Android alternative as previously rumored.
Why it matters: HarmonyOS, also known as Hongmeng OS, was deemed to be Huawei’s alternative to Google’s Android after the Chinese firm was cut off from US technology.
The debut of the operating system was on Huawei’s TV set, but it is not yet available on smartphones.
The current version of the operating system, or the HarmonyOS 1.0, runs on the company’s TV product, which was released last month.
The future HarmonyOS will support a wide range of devices from personal computers to smartwatches, as well as virtual reality glasses, said Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, at the Huawei Developer Conference in Dongguan on Friday, without mentioning any plan to install it on smartphones.
It is a microkernel-based, distributed OS that delivers a smooth experience across all scenarios.”
Huawei is hosting its annual developer’s conference, HDC 2019, in China from August 9th – August 11 2019.
Harmony OS is Huawei’s self-developed operating system.
At Huawei Developer Conference, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group said Harmony OS is ready to be “deployed on the company’s smartphones any time but Huawei want to use Google’s Android OS due to its partnership and its vast ecosystem.” He also added that Harmony OS is faster than Android but the company still wants to use Android’s ecosystem at the moment.
The power of open source will help to build its ecosystem much faster and more and more people can contribute to its development.
The Harmony OS is built to work across different devices seamlessly in the theory of smart connectivity and support Tablets, Smartphones, PC, TVs, Wearables and more.
Just few days back rumor mill was abuzz with the news that HongMeng OS is Huawei’s answer to Google’s Android operating system.
However, the developer website includes just fundamentals such as code of conduct, getting started guide, instructions for the development and running apps, glossary, and others.
Now, the website gets iterated and live with a new design and Fuchsia documentation where the content is organized in different documents to make it easily accessible and searchable.
All in all, with Fuchsia, Google has envisioned an OS that runs on a myriad of devices like- smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, TV's, speakers, smart home devices, cars, laptops, and anything that comes under Google’s tech umbrella while maintaining consistent experience without getting messy.
Google is undertaking the Fuchsia project to solve the issues related to Android and probably replace the part of Android software that users don’t see.
• Voice technology is gaining traction in the market and Android still doesn’t fit into the smart technology spectrum where Fuchsia is expected to resolve the problem and unfold new opportunities.
For instance, Android OS powers mobile phones, WearOS powers smartwatches, AndroidTV OS powers televisions, Android auto OS powers cars, and Chrome OS powers laptops, desktops, and tablets.