Huawei Harmony OS has once again becoming media headlines after a report from Shenzhen Special Zone Daily.
According to the report, Wang Chenglu, president of Huawei 's consumer business software department, said on December 8 that all Huawei devices except for phones, tablets and PCs will run Harmony OS next year.
Wang said that Harmony OS is also being promoted at home and abroad, and will be officially open source in August 2020.
Wang also revealed that Huawei's mobile phone will still prefer Android system, and Harmony OS will be the last choice.
In the first half of this year, Huawei was just included in the entity list by the US government, and Google stopped providing Android support to Huawei. To a certain extent, this has accelerated the process of the introduction of Harmony OS.
Huawei released the remarkable Harmony OS at the 2019 Huawei Developer Conference <HDC.2019> held from August 9 to August 11 this year.
Regarding the original intention of developing Harmony OS, Huawei's consumer business CEO Richard Yu said:
With the advent of the era of full-scenario intelligence, Huawei believes that it is necessary to further improve the cross-platform capabilities of the operating system, including the ability to support full-scenarios, across multiple devices and platforms, and the ability to respond to low latency and high security challenges.
He also added that the starting point of Harmony OS is different from Android and iOS. It is a new micro-kernel-based distributed operating system for all scenarios.
In order to meet the high-standard connection requirements for a full-scenario smart experience, Huawei has also proposed a system solution with 4 major features:
- Distributed architecture is used for terminal OS for the first time to achieve seamless collaborative experience across terminals
- Determine the latency engine and high-performance IPC technology to make the system inherently smooth
- Reinventing Trusted Security of Terminal Equipment Based on Microkernel Architecture
- Supports one-time development and multi-terminal deployment through unified IDE to achieve cross-terminal ecological sharing
Debuted on the Honor Smart Screen
Although it was initially speculated that Harmony OS is an operating system for mobile phones, this is not the case-it was first applied to smart screen products.
On August 10th, the second day of the Huawei Developers Conference 2019, Huawei 's sub-brand Honor officially released smart screen products; and the true appearance of Harmony OS was also unveiled for the first time.
At the UI design level, the UI of Honor Smart Screen is not particularly different from the smart TVs commonly used in the market, mainly reflecting aesthetic characteristics such as simplicity, clarity, and fluency. At the multi-device interaction level, Honor Smart Screen uses the distribution of Harmony OS operating system. Architecture, it can realize multi-device collaboration.
Its camera supports 1080P high-definition pictures, supports 5 meters of sound pickup, and supports 10-degree pitch adjustment.
Using Harmony OS's distributed technology, the smart screen can not only talk to smartphones, but also can communicate with DJI drones.
Although Harmony OS was first introduced in smart screen products, this does not mean that it cannot support smartphones. Richard Yu emphasized at the press conference:
Android is still the first operating system for Huawei smartphones; however, if Huawei cannot use Android, Harmony OS can also be applied to smartphones at any time, and the migration only takes one to two days. In addition, in the next three years, in addition to improving related technologies, Harmony OS will gradually be applied to wearable, smart screen, car and other smart devices.
After the conference, George Zhao, President of Honor, was interviewed. Regarding the debut of Harmony OS on the Honor Smart Screen, he also expressed his own opinion, "The reason why Harmony OS debuted on Honor is also because Honor is positioned as a brand for young people and is bolder in trying some new technologies."
The next step
In September 2019, Richard Yu once said that Harmony OS is basically ready, and the P40 released in March 2020 may be the first mobile phone equipped with Harmony OS.
Although it is still uncertain whether Huawei phones will receive Android support in the future, according to Wang Chenglu's recent statement (“Except for mobile phones, tablets and computers, Huawei 's other terminal products will be equipped with Harmony OS across the board. If you don't need it, you'll use Harmony OS.) It's likely that the P40, which will be released next year, will not be equipped with Harmony OS.
In addition, some industry observers have pointed out that the greatest significance of the emergence of Huawei Harmony OS is not only support for smartphones, but also for connecting all Huawei terminal products (1 + 8 + N smart life in all scenarios) to create Huawei's IoT-based Great ecology. Among them, "1" refers to mobile phones, and "8" refers to PCs, tablets, speakers, headphones, car machines, glasses, smart screens, watches, and so on.
It is worth mentioning that, although consumers may not see Harmony OS-equipped smartphones next year, Huawei smartphones are quietly changing—Huawei 's plan to improve Android is in progress and is dedicated to the issue of Android 's stuttering. Wang Chenglu revealed:
(Huawei EMUI) Every version of the update and the solution of core problems have a theoretical basis behind them. Mathematical modeling must be done well. There must be scientific laws behind the UI field, which involves many complex technologies. Now we dare to say that Huawei has solved the problem of Android's stuttering.
Regardless, Harmony OS has achieved a leap from 0 to 1 and has been successfully deployed on specific products. Although Harmony OS will not appear on mobile phones, tablets, computers and other devices for the time being, the variables still exist over time.
