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Huawei unveils HarmonyOS, a future-proof mobile OS designed to replace Android

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Huawei has officially unveiled Harmon OS, its proprietary mobile operating system. HarmonyOS is an ‘internationalized’ brand name for HongMeng, a mobile OS that the Shenzen-based tech giant has been working on for a while.

Huawei began working on HarmonyOS in 2017 but had to accelerate its development following the trade ban that the US department of commerce placed on the company.

The OS is, therefore, not yet ready for deployment on smartphones but it is rumored that Huawei will launch the first smartphone running the HarmonyOS before the end of 2019. The OS, however, appears ready to run on smart TVs.

Huawei is pretty confident about HarmonyOS being a better alternative to Android OS. The company touts the OS as being faster and much more secure than the Android OS. Harmony OS is also designed to run on a number of gadgets such as smart watches and car kits.

If you happen to be a software development enthusiast, here is all the jargon that Huawei used to pitch the OS to developers.

The biggest weakness with the OS is that it does not support the installation (side-loading) of Android Apps. Developers have to tweak the OS to make it compatible with Android OS. This is a pain point and a hurdle towards the adoption of the HarmonyOS.

The good thing is that Huawei plan to open-source HarmonyOS and this might help with attracting developers to the platform.

At the moment Huawei is yet to officially shift to Harmony OS and is waiting for the outcome of the trade talks between the US and China.

The unveiling of HarmonyOS is a good thing and a win for Huawei.

The move could, however, sets the precedent for other major vendors to do the same and this could potentially fragment the mobile OS ecosystem and complicated what was otherwise a simple decision of having to choose between Android or iOS.

Image courtesy of XDA-developers

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