Harmony OS

Harmony OS

After a couple of years of under development since 2012, Huawei has officially announced its Harmony OS at the Huawei Developer Conference 2019. The company also plans to create an open-source foundation and build a community to drive crowd-sourced development of its new OS.


The biggest highlights of this new OS is that it's going to release as open-source software as an attempt to increase the company's adoption.


Let's find what is new about this operating system.

What is Harmony OS?

Harmony OS is an upcoming open source, microkernel-based distributed operating system which was developed by Huawei. The new operating system also called Hongmeng OS in China. This OS can be used in everything - smartphones, wearables, smart speakers, and more. This Harmony OS could be replaced Android OS on future Huawei devices.

Harmony OS is also the first OS that uses formal verification in device, namely the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). This OS will also be used for smart TVs, and it’ll arrive on wearables and laptops by 2020.


The new OS will address underperformance challenges with a Deterministic Latency Engine and high-performance Inter Process Communication (IPC). The Deterministic Latency Engine sets task execution priorities and time limits for scheduling in advance.


Harmony OS is a lot different than Android and iOS as it’s scalable for different kinds of devices.

The features of Harmony OS

Open Source

Harmony OS will be released as an open-source platform. The company has officially announced that this new OS will be ‘open source’ for the developer. It will help to build its ecosystem faster and more and more people can contribute to its development.

Cross platform

Harmony OS isn’t just going to be limited to smartphones but expand its reach to other devices with different form factors such as wearables, smart speakers televisions, refrigerators, cars, etc.

Unique Design

It comes with modular design based on a new microkernel created by Huawei. And it has “decoupled” the OS from the hardware so that developers need to create the software just once.

Performance

The new OS is also faster than Android. Resources will gravitate toward tasks with higher priorities, reducing the response latency of apps by 25.7 percent.

ARK Compiler

Huawei will be providing access to its ARK Compiler to developers. It will help run and compile code from multiple languages including C/C++, Java, and Kotlin. With this, developers can recompile Android apps to work in harmony.

Connectivity

With Harmony OS onboard, movies, games and videos can be beamed straight to it with an NFC handshake and a WiFi Direct link, plus there's an AI-enabled pop-up camera for video calling.

Storage space

This OS captures minimum storage space. One line of Harmony OS code can do the job of 100 lines of Android code, which is what makes it perfect for devices with small amounts of storage, such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, smart speakers and car dashboards.

Built with IoT

It’s also been built with IoT in mind. So, you can go from one space to another and your video call can follow you across devices, from a TV to a smart screen to a phone, and finally to a computer.

Conclusion

So far, Huawei's new OS remains quite mysterious. The OS would be available through Huawei's App Gallery. It's expected to launch on entry-level devices and won't launch on Huawei flagships until it's ready. No matter what name the OS, but it will be worthless without app support.
Huawei announced that Harmony OS would initially be used on devices targeting the Chinese market. Honor, the company's subsidiary brand, unveiled the Honor Vision line of smart TVs - the first consumer electronics devices that run Harmony OS.